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Finally a little progress on my Powerwall Install

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I ordered 2 Powerwalls for my Solar System from Tesla back on July 2, 2020.
They keep telling me that installation may not be until next year.
Today I did receive notice that the Tesla Contractor has been issued the Permit for the job.
I sent a note off to my Project Advisor mentioning the details and hope to hear back from her and get installation scheduled.
 
Hey that’s exciting news and hopefully it means sooner than later and no issues get tagged by the city, AHJ or utility when they see the plans. A lot also depends on number of PW install teams working your area and how booked up they are. It is quite the hot commodity. Is your home in the PSPS area right now?
 
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I am in the PSPS area although probably won't see a shutoff this time. Winds are high but most of the outages are happening in the Bay Area and in Napa. We are in El Dorado Hills just east of Sacramento.
I did hear back from my Project Advisor. She said she was handing me off to another advisor that handles my area. They apparently emailed a document a week ago for me to sign but I never received it, they will resend. On the main panel there is a 200 Amp Main Breaker and a separate 100 amp breaker that feeds a sub panel upstairs. They indicated that the Sub panel will not be on the backup. Not a problem as that is only items like upstairs lights and the laundry room. It would sure be nice to talk to one of the technical people directly to understand the situation with loads that are backed up and those that might not be. Clearly swimming pool and free standing electric hot tub are not critical.
 
I am in the PSPS area although probably won't see a shutoff this time. Winds are high but most of the outages are happening in the Bay Area and in Napa. We are in El Dorado Hills just east of Sacramento.
I did hear back from my Project Advisor. She said she was handing me off to another advisor that handles my area. They apparently emailed a document a week ago for me to sign but I never received it, they will resend. On the main panel there is a 200 Amp Main Breaker and a separate 100 amp breaker that feeds a sub panel upstairs. They indicated that the Sub panel will not be on the backup. Not a problem as that is only items like upstairs lights and the laundry room. It would sure be nice to talk to one of the technical people directly to understand the situation with loads that are backed up and those that might not be. Clearly swimming pool and free standing electric hot tub are not critical.

I'm in EDH as well. We moved here 2.5 years ago from Bay Area. After our first electric bill (June), ordered solar panels not through Tesla though. After PSPS last year ordered PWs also not through Tesla. Mine were installed this past December.
 
One thing I didn't realize is that even non backed up loads can be powered by the powerwalls without anything coming off the grid as long as the grid is still connected. I have one load, the tesla charger, that is not backed up (intentionally) because if the grid is off I don't want pull energy from the PWs the charge the car. But if the grid is on and the PWs are charged above their reserve, power will flow from the PWs to the charger.

I placed my order on 7/25. Had 3 revisions including a revised permit with my county. Also had to do a MSP upgrade to boot which was done two days before the install which was 9 days ago. Passed final inspection a week ago today. It's been 7 days since final inspection and I still haven't gotten an invoice from Tesla.
 
Wow! my status just changed. New check marks on Review and accept your Design and on permits. It now says Installation Ready and call the scheduling department. I called and they are ready to install tomorrow. That was too quick so it is now scheduled for Friday morning. Had to call my son and cancel our Friday fishing trip. Looks like I might get that Tax credit this year after all.
 
Wow! my status just changed. New check marks on Review and accept your Design and on permits. It now says Installation Ready and call the scheduling department. I called and they are ready to install tomorrow. That was too quick so it is now scheduled for Friday morning. Had to call my son and cancel our Friday fishing trip. Looks like I might get that Tax credit this year after all.

Good for you!
 
I got a call from Steven at Tesla this morning regarding tomorrows install of 2 Powerwalls. Turns out they are backing everything up. Including my 5 ton and 3 ton air conditioners. The 5 Ton has a 2 stage scroll compressor and the 3 ton is old school. He said they would put soft starts on both of them. I asked how long he thought it would take to get the inspection. He said it doesn't matter since I already have solar panels, the system would be turned on and fully functional with solar charging batteries tomorrow.
I have a 400 amp panel with a 200 Amp main and a 100 Amp sub panel that runs the upstairs. He said they would not back up the 100 amp sub panel but Hot tub, pool, AC are all being backed up. Not that I would run any of them during a power outage but good to know.
Impressive!
 
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Powerwalls were installed yesterday. Since I had solar already, they went active at 5 pm last night with no delay for PTO. Not much solar to charge so today the 2 Powerwalls charged to 100% by 3 pm. At 6 pm, the solar was shutting down and I expected the Powerwalls to kick in but all power was coming from the grid. Seems the installer said that it would take a couple days for the system to learn before they actually took over. Can someone confirm. Advance scheduling menus don't seem to be available.
 
Powerwalls were installed yesterday. Since I had solar already, they went active at 5 pm last night with no delay for PTO. Not much solar to charge so today the 2 Powerwalls charged to 100% by 3 pm. At 6 pm, the solar was shutting down and I expected the Powerwalls to kick in but all power was coming from the grid. Seems the installer said that it would take a couple days for the system to learn before they actually took over. Can someone confirm. Advance scheduling menus don't seem to be available.

It depends on what mode you have it in. If you have it in self powered mode then the powerwalls should take over as soon as the sun goes down. If you have it in backup only mode (or self powered mode with a very high reserve) then it will run off the grid.

Stormwatch and the advanced option usually take a few days before they appear.
 
Thanks, that was it, default was 100% on Batteries. Any suggestions for that number during non critical times. I currently set it to 50% and now they are giving back. Sweet!

It’s really a decision that you need to make for your own situation. The higher the reserve percentage the more power you will have available in the event of an outage, but the less power you will have available for day to day use.

If you don’t have outages frequently and/or are OK with the possibility of running out of power in the event of an extended outage, then you could set the number lower to take advantage of the load shifting capability of the powerwalls.

It’s also worth spending some time playing around with the system to get an idea about how much power you use. Maybe set the reserve way down tonight and see how much power it takes to power your house overnight. If, say, you discover that you only need 30% of the powerwalls capacity to power your house through the night then you could set your reserve around 35 or 40% and know that no matter when the power fails you should be able to make it through the night and into the next day when the sun comes out.

I know that some people will also vary the reserve based on what’s happening around them. If you are affected by the wildfires, for example, and know that your solar system isn’t producing as much power as normal and/or it is more likely that your power might fail, then maybe you could bump the reserve up a bit. In the winter if you have gas heat and you aren’t running your air conditioner at all then your house might be using less power than it would in the summer, so you might want to bump the reserve down a bit.
 
@DoyleS as almost neighbors, I set ours for Cost Saving mode and 33% Reserve. I have 3 PWs. Thats a bit conservative on the reserve but if there is any unexpected outage, I know I can make it to sunrise. I also have Storm Watch enabled. Some people play around with that and go off/On, but I'd rather be safe. In fact, if we are on the edge of a Red Alert warning, I switch to Backup only. I'd rather lose a couple $ than not have power after investing in the system

During the summer, the PWs will discharge all the way to reserve. I can make it all the way through Peak unless temp goes above 95. Even then, I can get to 7:30 ish. I'm still on an older rate plan where my Peak is 2pm to 9pm.
These days I'm only drawing about 6 or 7 kWh and can get all the way through Peak. I swapped a heat pump for one of my gas furnaces this past year, so I'm anxious to see what happens in winter months. I added 33% more solar to account for that. This will also be first winter with the PWs