I am sure that answering that would take me into marketing territory! Hang tight...
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Generac PwrCell
- Thread starter Zer0t
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I am sure that answering that would take me into marketing territory! Hang tight...
Appreciate it, lol. I get its a fine line and appreciate you attempting to walk it.
I'm considering the LG RESU option because of long lead times and slow Tesla design plans. I was given the contact from a customer who had the RESU placed on their system. He was saying he doesn't have control over the battery software and that he has to contact his installer to make setting changes. That seems like a deal breaker to me. What are your thoughts and experience with the LG battery so far. Have you had to use it during a blackout or have you tried a simulated one by turning off your main breaker?
I agree, super handy battery control isn’t really a must have.
However, if you had an ESS that could have a super easy “charge from the grid” setting to pull energy in at a whim, that would be a deal-maker type of thing.
Then you could pull in off peak power in advance of an overcast or poor solar day and power through peak time without worrying about anything. Unfortunately such awesomeness isn’t available in the USA without some funny business.
However, if you had an ESS that could have a super easy “charge from the grid” setting to pull energy in at a whim, that would be a deal-maker type of thing.
Then you could pull in off peak power in advance of an overcast or poor solar day and power through peak time without worrying about anything. Unfortunately such awesomeness isn’t available in the USA without some funny business.
Most non-Tesla home battery systems do not have technical restrictions on charging from the grid. The common practice for non-Tesla vendors is to require battery system owners to comply with any relevant government subsidy rules for their particular situation and use or don't use grid charging accordingly.
Tesla Powerwalls also have no technical restrictions on charging from the grid as all units support grid charging for Stormwatch mode. The restrictions are purely policy decisions on a regional utility basis with a slice of ITC tax requirements to charge only by solar.
bsf29
Member
I'm a PWRCell owner since Oct 2020 and am happy with our 7Kw solar 18Kw PWRCell supplying our 1850sf *house (*further clarification below). Even if there wasn't a shipment delay, I would still pick Generac or similar system over Tesla. DC vs AC is a long debate. The only thing I don't care with DC is not being able to monitor my individual panels output, but I can see how each of my 3 banks are producing and that's good enough for me. The one thing I really like with PWRCell over PowerWall is that I have total control of my system. I don't have to hope that Tesla sees a hurricane approaching and makes sure the battery is fully charged. You can read more about Self Supply, Clean Backup, Priority Backup, and Island mode from Generac's site. I also have a custom Time Of Use profile for our electric company where I can take advantage of buying from the grid as needed during our EV and solar off-peak rates, but I rarely have a need to use it. While our PWRCell feeds our single breaker box, we do have 2 SMM's (Smart Monitoring Modules) to disconnect our Tesla Charger and AC if the grid goes down. We also have to watch when running our dryer and typically switch to Clean Backup to avoid draining the battery if the SoC is low on a low solar day. The 17Kw PWRCell could handle these 3 individual devices but we want to avoid discharging the battery too low. I can also set the min and absolute minimum battery levels and take advantage of more of the batteries capabilities. Our house is very efficient so the single battery cabinet is more than enough to handle the load. We also have a gas heat, gas stove and water heater so the AC, Dryer, and Charger are the 3 items we have to be concerned with during grid outage. I normally trickle charge (5A - 22A) our cars from solar. If I need a fast/higher charge I enable our TOU setting and charge off-peak.
The other benefit over Tesla is that when the grid goes down, the system will still supply the house. Unless Tesla has changed, solar has to charge the PowerWall and then it runs the house. Until the battery is charged, the solar only flows to the PowerWall and you are down until the battery can supply the house.
My real disappointment is with Generac as a company. They are as bad with their PWRCell support as they are with their gas generators. As long as you don't need them, it's great. If you have a problem, then Generac is no better than Tesla as far as getting stuff done. I had to hound them for 3 months to get a bad battery module replaced. I have an electrical background and I proved it was their module that was messed up but I still had to fight to get it replaced. The good news is that we were operating fine on 5 modules (14Kw) until I got the replacement. Level 1 support is helpful but they are limited on what they have been taught. Unless you are a dealer, you can't get to upper support. Since I proved to upper support that the module was bad, I'm no longer able to get data dumps on how my system is performing. Another thing that just shows how poor of a company Generac is. MY data, why can't I have access to it??????
As far as the cabinets & battery modules. I would spend the extra money on the outdoor rated even if you are installing in the garage/shed. The reason is that they have a wider operating temperature range. I have the original cabinet/modules and they shutdown at 40f. I had to add a small heater in my garage for the rare times when it drops to 40. The battery modules are the exact same internal battery cells. They just opened the firmware to allow you access to 85% of the full capacity vs 80% on the original modules and claim they are 5% better. Still a ripoff and they should be giving us access to at least 90%.
The other benefit over Tesla is that when the grid goes down, the system will still supply the house. Unless Tesla has changed, solar has to charge the PowerWall and then it runs the house. Until the battery is charged, the solar only flows to the PowerWall and you are down until the battery can supply the house.
My real disappointment is with Generac as a company. They are as bad with their PWRCell support as they are with their gas generators. As long as you don't need them, it's great. If you have a problem, then Generac is no better than Tesla as far as getting stuff done. I had to hound them for 3 months to get a bad battery module replaced. I have an electrical background and I proved it was their module that was messed up but I still had to fight to get it replaced. The good news is that we were operating fine on 5 modules (14Kw) until I got the replacement. Level 1 support is helpful but they are limited on what they have been taught. Unless you are a dealer, you can't get to upper support. Since I proved to upper support that the module was bad, I'm no longer able to get data dumps on how my system is performing. Another thing that just shows how poor of a company Generac is. MY data, why can't I have access to it??????
As far as the cabinets & battery modules. I would spend the extra money on the outdoor rated even if you are installing in the garage/shed. The reason is that they have a wider operating temperature range. I have the original cabinet/modules and they shutdown at 40f. I had to add a small heater in my garage for the rare times when it drops to 40. The battery modules are the exact same internal battery cells. They just opened the firmware to allow you access to 85% of the full capacity vs 80% on the original modules and claim they are 5% better. Still a ripoff and they should be giving us access to at least 90%.
It's technical in the sense that owners have no technical control.
This is not true the way you stated it. When the grid is down, the Powerwalls form a micro-grid from the battery that balances all flows, both generation and load. The batteries will simply charge from whatever solar your house is not consuming. The problem comes in when you drain the Powerwalls empty at night. They have to shut down to protect themselves and wait until there is solar generation again. Sometimes, the system does not wake up again by itself and will stay down until the grid comes back up. However, you can force it to cold start, but you had better turn off all your load breakers so that it can start charging before it shuts down again due to low state of charge. The homeowner bears some responsibility to watch the battery level and conserve electricity so that it does not shut down. I can see how the PwrCell DC system could take all the energy from the solar into the batteries for charging even when the loads have been shut down due to low charge. You can't do that with an AC coupled system.
OOoooo Generac's "Priority Backup" mode looks pretty sweet. Since it's user enabled and not tied to some NWS wacky stuff.
Someone Tweet Elon to add this feature to the Powerwall ecosystem plzzzzz
Someone Tweet Elon to add this feature to the Powerwall ecosystem plzzzzz
bsf29
Member
Thanks for the info @miimura. I was just mentioning what I had previously read about PowerWall and what my installer confirmed when I was evaluating both solutions. They are an authorized PowerWall installer and had installed several PowerWall solutions prior to my final decision. Also why I said “unless Tesla changed things”. The total control of my system is still the major benefit of a non Tesla solution. Most users wouldn’t appreciate the total control and just want to run in “autopilot”. Being a techno geek, I like maximizing my system‘s potential. When I’m out of town, my wife doesn’t mess with it and has never had any issues. PWRCell can also go into a shutdown condition and require a cold start if the 6v start up battery is depleted. I did accidentally deplete my PWRCell to AbsMinSoC and the battery went into suspend mode. I was automatically switched to running from the grid. As soon as there was solar production it offset my grid usage. As there was excess solar, the battery started to charge without me having to mess with it. Another benefit is if a module fails you just disconnect the bad module and you can function with the remaining modules. When you have the replacement you run the vSet process to balance the modules and you are back up to your full capacity. I actually started with 5 modules and 5Kw solar. I add the 6th module in January and upgraded our solar last month once I realized i can charge our M3’s faster or when our AC is running.
Right on! I love to see a power user. What exactly are you doing to enable faster vehicle charging? Have you cracked into the installer tools yet?
bsf29
Member
@Generac_Jeremy, I’m still waiting for the API’s so I can tie my PWRCell into SmartThings and IFTTT. I just have some notifications setup if the weather is bad and I might need to switch to Priority Backup to make sure we can make it through our peak and shoulder rates. I’m working on a web scraper to interface the systems, but I would rather have the API’s. “Alex” added me to the list of customers waiting for the API’s. I would love for Generac to allow switching modes via PWRView/API. For safety, you could make it a manual process to switch out of shutdown, but if someone was working on the system they would throw the disconnects. There are other issues I have reported with PWRView that dev has yet to address. Nothing critical.
As for “faster charging”, it’s more that adding a few more panels allows me to set my charging amps to 8 - 22 vs 5 - 16 as our system has excess solar. Still a manual process since I can’t control this from the Tesla app either, but much nicer to have the extra 6A of charging speed.
As for “faster charging”, it’s more that adding a few more panels allows me to set my charging amps to 8 - 22 vs 5 - 16 as our system has excess solar. Still a manual process since I can’t control this from the Tesla app either, but much nicer to have the extra 6A of charging speed.
I can't speak about when that functionality will be available, but Alex in tech service is a very trustworthy guy and I would believe him if he said you're on a list. Great job on the workaround in any event!
el-guapin
Trust no One
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