Existing Powerwall 2s to get 50% power capacity increase with SW update?

[jjrandorin]

According to the original article, the tweet from Musk said:


So my question is has this been unlocked for anyone? In particular, it seems that unlocking a 50% power increase could be problematic because of the wiring / breakers currently in place.

If I am misinterpreting the tweet, I'd appreciate any feedback.

Since you may be new to this section of TMC (but also could have been lurking for a while), I wanted to point out that @Vines and @wwhitney are two of the most knowledgable people we have here on the topic of electricity (codes, installs, etc).

I will freely admit that I did not understand everything of the last two posts they made in this thread, but got the gist of it, which appears to me to be:

Expect that the tweet referred to short term start up loads only, and not continuous output because <insert technical reasons here>

So, thats good enough for me to expect that any mention of this from tesla side would be referring to short term (startup) type loads and not continuous output.

 

[SadSolar]

so, it's not storage capacity that's going to increase? bummer

 

[gati2]

Electrical inverters have a rating, which determines the breaker and wire size.

If you allow the inverter to output more continuous current, you have to increase its rating and therefore the NEC code required wire and breaker sizes between the Powerwall and the subpanel must increase. Also all the interconnection agreements with utilities may need to be updated based on the new power.

Even if the inverter is capable of more power, it would be a violation and a fire risk to OTA update existing Powerwalls with more continuous power.

Yes, that was the point of my query. Since I'm still waiting for the powerwalls to arrive and be installed, is there any benefit in installing the appropriate wire and breaker sizes for the rumored increase? Thus, if the rumor somehow becomes reality for new installs then I can take advantage of it without having to rewire something I just put in.

It sounds like there is a good deal of general skepticism, primarily because this would be impractical for any existing installs and there does not appear to have been any change in guidance for new installs. Furthermore, deviating from the current install guides could have an impact on the warranty or Tesla support so trying to "future proof" would likely have a high probability of failure.

Thanks everyone for the insights.

 

[h2ofun]

Yes, that was the point of my query. Since I'm still waiting for the powerwalls to arrive and be installed, is there any benefit in installing the appropriate wire and breaker sizes for the rumored increase? Thus, if the rumor somehow becomes reality for new installs then I can take advantage of it without having to rewire something I just put in.

It sounds like there is a good deal of general skepticism, primarily because this would be impractical for any existing installs and there does not appear to have been any change in guidance for new installs. Furthermore, deviating from the current install guides could have an impact on the warranty or Tesla support so trying to "future proof" would likely have a high probability of failure.

Thanks everyone for the insights.

Tesla PW support says they do not support the product with larger breaker, AND again , nothing is coming!!!!!

 

[cali8484]

Yes, that was the point of my query. Since I'm still waiting for the powerwalls to arrive and be installed, is there any benefit in installing the appropriate wire and breaker sizes for the rumored increase? Thus, if the rumor somehow becomes reality for new installs then I can take advantage of it without having to rewire something I just put in.

It sounds like there is a good deal of general skepticism, primarily because this would be impractical for any existing installs and there does not appear to have been any change in guidance for new installs. Furthermore, deviating from the current install guides could have an impact on the warranty or Tesla support so trying to "future proof" would likely have a high probability of failure.

Thanks everyone for the insights.

You should be able to future proof with with higher gauge wires for higher power without issues but still need to use breakers sized for existing equipment. This way, you will only need to change breakers for updated/upgraded equipment with higher power.

 

[wwhitney]

You should be able to future proof with with higher gauge wires for higher power without issues but still need to use breakers sized for existing equipment. This way, you will only need to change breakers for updated/upgraded equipment with higher power.

If the run from the breaker to Powerwall is short, like 10', not even worth doing that, given the low likelihood. You'd have to change the breaker for this future enhanced equipment, and it would easy at that time to upsize the wire as well.

if the run from the breaker to Powerwall is longer or complicated, there's some argument for using #8 on a 30A breaker. Probably the conductor upsize is a waste, but on the off chance that some change materializes that require a 40A circuit, you (or the installer) will be happy not to have to repull the wires.

Cheers, Wayne