First power outage...Powerwalls did great!

[Cstreet]

It depends on what is delivering power to your home at that time, home load, etc. Sometimes its unnoticeable, sometimes, there is a few milliseconds lag, which is enough for some computers, routers etc to reboot.

For example, if you have solar + powerwalls providing all of your power for your home load, you wont see any change. If you have all of your home load covered with just your solar and your powerwalls are on standby because they are full, you might see a blip in an outage as the solar turns off and the powerwalls turn "on" to power your home.

Basically, if your home is already being powered with some powerwall power, then you wont notice a change at all. If it ISNT (powerwalls being charged by solar, or in standby, etc) there are times when you will notice a blip.

Whether you want to cover for that "sometimes" depends on you, but there definitely is "sometimes" you will notice it without any UPS on computers / routers, etc.

Yep this is exactly the case. The outage hit when the house was pulling from the grid so there is a quick blip as it islands the house from the grid and flips to the batteries.

I have a few small Cyberpower ups units just for my Comcast router and my mesh wifi unit.

Also another tip I got from the forum is do a full Powerwall test to make sure the default 65hz signaling frequency they use to shutoff the inverter does not cause issues with your appliances. I had a few issues and Tesla dropped the signal frequency to 62hz which resolved the problems.

 

[gpez]

I just checked my backup history and found we had an outage on June 30. We did not know it had happened as all clocks, etc. showed no evidence of a power interruption. Based on a neighbor's report, I believe it was during the day when the solar array was producing power. Our system has only been in since early June, so need more time to determine characteristics.

You may notice short (exactly 5 minute) outage reports by the Powerwall as that's the reconnect time for both full grid outages but also for abnormal grid conditions even short "blips". Without a Powerwall you'd notice these "blips" as lights flickering or computers rebooting, with the Powerwall it will take over your house completely and call it a outage for 5 minutes. Neighbors may not have even noticed the blip but the Powerwall records it.

This happened to me recently as a large section of the city lost power late at night due to a tree branch. We weren't affected by the outage but for the brief second when the grid had to adjust to block off the area to compensate for the downed line our power blipped. The Powerwall didn't like that and took over, causing my "powers out!" alarm to go off at 3am. I've since changed the alarm to ignore <5 minute outages so I can get some more sleep

 

[charlesj]

Yesterday we had our first power outage for just over an hour. The Powerwalls kicked in, the UPS on my internet routers kept things happy during the switchover. The Powerwalls were at 100% and so the solar shutdown just fine. It was a non event which is how it should be!

Did you get an audio signal with that notification?
Perhaps a badge on the tesla app besides the notification on the screen.

 

[Cstreet]

Did you get an audio signal with that notification?
Perhaps a badge on the tesla app besides the notification on the screen.

My phone was on vibrate but I got a buzz and notification. I'm on an Android phone.

 

[Cstreet]

Today we are on our second power outage of the day and the system is working like a champ! AC still going keeping things cool. These are PGE equipment issues it's not related to the rolling outages.

 

[GaitherBill]

I can't imagine "wasting" Powerwall juice on our AC units.

But we're in Maryland and have a basement that stays cooler should we need it.

 

[wjgjr]

I can't imagine "wasting" Powerwall juice on our AC units.

But we're in Maryland and have a basement that stays cooler should we need it.

Maybe on day 1, but by the 4th day of no power after the derechio several years back, even the basement was miserable. We know we couldn't run our A/C full time with an outage, but we would definitely run it as much as we could to make it a little more pleasant both for temperature and humidity.

 

[GaitherBill]

Maybe on day 1, but by the 4th day of no power after the derechio several years back, even the basement was miserable. We know we couldn't run our A/C full time with an outage, but we would definitely run it as much as we could to make it a little more pleasant both for temperature and humidity.

Ours aren't even connected to the "critical loads" panel. We did have that option though.

Maybe someday if we add 2 more Powerwalls.

We went with essentials, more so because we have that New England attitude about winter storms than anything else.

Heat, well pump, fridge, internet, garage door openers, range hood, convenience lighting. Gas range and hot water.

 

[BrettS]

I can't imagine "wasting" Powerwall juice on our AC units.

But we're in Maryland and have a basement that stays cooler should we need it.

Haha, it’s all about location. I got four powerwalls specifically so I could run my AC. Here in Florida, even if the power is just out for a few hours in the afternoons things start getting pretty miserable with no AC. And if the power is out for a few days in the summer it’s nearly unlivable without AC.

 

[gpez]

We use our AC maybe 3 times a year when the temperature gets above 85 or so and don't have our AC on the Powerwall. I'd strongly consider it next time if for nothing else than the flexibility of having it available during an outage.

 

[Cstreet]

So last night we had our third outage and it was nearly 7 hours. I kept an eye on things and turned off the AC once we got to 12% left. The rest of the house draws only 300 watts at night so we were good until power came back a few hours later. That's the lowest I've had the Powerwalls so far at 10% left. Today no more heat wave so fingers crossed we don't loose power again.

 

[Cstreet]

We got hit with the California PG&E planned power shutoffs. We are one day without grid power with another day to go and the system is going great! It went into Storm watch a few days before the outage and only discharged to 70% overnight and filled back up to 98% during the day. Last year I was dragging a generator and power cables all over the house this is such a nice difference!