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Grid outage, Powerwall drops loads for minutes

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Had a couple of grid glitches today, Powerwalls worked as expected. Some lights blinked and my computer that is not on UPS reported power issues and rebooted. Ting reported at least one of the issues as brownout with voltage dropping to 60V. Despite the weather the photovoltaic systems managed to eek 26.9 kWh today.

Thats good news at least. Glad they worked as expected this time.
 
Had a couple of grid glitches today, Powerwalls worked as expected. Some lights blinked and my computer that is not on UPS reported power issues and rebooted. Ting reported at least one of the issues as brownout with voltage dropping to 60V. Despite the weather the photovoltaic systems managed to eek 26.9 kWh today.
Thanks for your information regarding the "Ting" sensor - didn't know even such a thing existed. I think I'm going to order one. It looks pretty neat (and informative).

Do you really plug it in anywhere in the house? Or is a certain physical location or circuit preferred?

Fruitcake
 
Thanks for your information regarding the "Ting" sensor - didn't know even such a thing existed. I think I'm going to order one. It looks pretty neat (and informative).

Do you really plug it in anywhere in the house? Or is a certain physical location or circuit preferred?

Fruitcake
yes, I just picked an outlet that wasn't in use. If you are insured by State Farm check to see if you can get one for free.
 
yes, I just picked an outlet that wasn't in use. If you are insured by State Farm check to see if you can get one for free.
Nope, I am instead insured by the old-school "Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire" - conveniently shortened to just "Philadelphia Contributionship Insurance" when writing checks for policy premiums. Fun fact: it's the oldest insurance company in America. One of the many things founded by Benjamin Franklin when he wasn't inventing post offices, bifocals, and major research universities. (He probably would have also invented Ting in his day, so as to better measure the amount of electrocution he would experience by flying kites in thunderstorms. But they didn't have good 802.11 in the Philadelphia area at the time.)

Fruitcake
 
I had a planned grid outage today for 6 hours. Completely forgot about it as it was a few miles away replacing some poles. Just happened to glance at my phone and the Tesla app had put an icon in the alert bar letting me know I was in backup mode (Android and still on 3.10.14). I was really pleased at how all this worked today. Here is my set up:
  • Dow Solar shingles with Fronius Inverter
  • Solar Flower with Fronius Inverter
  • Tesla Solar Roof with Solar Edge Inverter
  • (2) Powerwall 2's
Like I said, I did not realize I was in backup mode. At the time it started my PWs were about 82% and all three solar systems kept producing until I got to about 95%. Then the production dropped below about 8kW. The two Fronius inverters rarely came back online until the power was restored. I saw about 2 events where they were back up again when my load increased because of hot tub and a well pump. However the Solar Edge was constantly varying from off to 400 watts to 1500 watts depending on the status of the PWs. I never saw the PWs go below 98%.

I was really surprised to see the granularity of the systems and how it all responded so well with varying loads and discharges over the six hours. This gives me great confidence that if I needed to go off grid for multiple days I would be in great shape (if the sun shined 🙂 ).
 
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We had a power outage yesterday. The outage happened in the early evening while the system was discharging the Powerwalls in self powered mode. The Powerwalls dropped the loads for about 16 minutes and then came back on. I've seen others report Powerwalls taking a while to pick up the load but in most of those cases the Powerwalls were not in standby. Even with mostly Tesla only data, the Powerwalls did not cover a significant portion of the outage.

I've emailed energy support.

3 Powerwalls
Gateway 1
Whole house backup
PG&E

Sense = power monitoring device powered directly from the panel. Powerwall + solar is treated as solar on the Sense
Ting = plug-in monitor for detecting electrical faults that might cause fires
Ubiquiti = network equipment plugged in to small UPS
Laura = human that was in the house
Tesla App Log = what you can see from the app
Tesla Data Download = "download data" from app

Annoying that many time stamps have only minute resolution. Even more annoying is data download only has 5 minute resolution.
TimeSourceDescriptionNote
7:13:45 PMSenseNo solar (Powerwall) or loadsIs this the beginning? Was the Sense clock off?
7:20:00 PMTesla Data Download0.7 kW Load, 0.7 kW from Powerwalls, 0 kw GridHad been discharging at around 1 kW
7:22:00 PMUbiquitiFirst wired device reported off network
7:23:00 PMTing"Power Outage"
7:23:00 PMLaurahouse dark
7:24:00 PMUbiquitiSwitches and devices not on UPS start to disconnect from network
7:25:00 PMTesla Data Download0 kW Load, 0 kW Powerwalls, 0 kW Grid
7:30:00 PMTesla Data Download0 kW Load, 0 kW Powerwalls, 0 kW Grid
7:33:00 PMPGEEmail about the outage
7:33:00 PMTesla App LogPower Outage
7:35:00 PMTesla Data Download1.3 kW load, 1.3 kW Powerwalls, 0 kW Grid
7:38:00 PMLauraLights back on
7:39:00 PMSenseSolar and loads are onPowerwall came back?
7:39:00 PMTingPower restored
7:39:00 PMTing"Generator on"How does the Ting figure this out?
7:39:00 PMUbiquitiFirst set of network devices reconnect to the network
7:40:00 PMUbiquitiMore devices connect, some are disconnecting
7:42:00 PMSenseNo solar (Powerwall) or loadsNo other device noted missing power
7:42:54 PMSenseSolar and loadsPowewall came back again?
8:05:00 PMTesla App LogGrid reported as returning
8:05:50 PMSenseNo solar (Powerwall) but loads activeGrid returned? Powerwall stops momentarily?
8:05:51 PMSenseSolar and loads are onPowerwall resumes offsetting load
8:06:00 PMTing"Generator off"
We had a 9 minute grid outage last week and the two PWs stayed in Standby mode as the house went dark. The outage was in the middle of the day so solar was producing about 4 kWs which was supplying power to the home with the remainder exported to the grid. PWs were at 100 percent because 100 percent is reserved for backup. I checked the Tesla app to see what was going on during the 9 minutes and the app showed that everything was normal with solar powering the house and the rest going to the grid. Nine minutes later the grid outage ended and the house was powered again. The Tesla app did not notify me of the outage and the 9 minute outage is not shown in the backup history.

The grid is normally very stable and we have on average one or two grid outages per year, and normally it is only for a few minutes. This is the first time that the PWs did not seamlessly take over during the past four years. The previous day there was a 6 minute grid outage and the PWs did work properly and that event is shown in the Backup History.

I don’t know if eventually the PWs would have finally noticed that the grid was down and begin powering the house like in your situation because the grid came back up after 9 minutes.

I need to report this to Tesla Support and am hoping that it has access to a log to see what was going on during the 9 minute outage. I was planning to call Tesla Energy tomorrow to report this, but is it better to request support via email?
 
I was planning to call Tesla Energy tomorrow to report this, but is it better to request support via email?
l would recommend calling the existing customer support number (725-867-6182), talk to a customer rep, and then ask them for their email address so that you can send supporting information. The rep can then copy your email details into their system. My experience has been that if you just send an email, you are not likely to get a response.
 
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l would recommend calling the existing customer support number (725-867-6182), talk to a customer rep, and then ask them for their email address so that you can send supporting information. The rep can then copy your email details into their system. My experience has been that if you just send an email, you are not likely to get a response.
Thanks for that advice. I called Tesla today and the Tier 1 support rep looked at the Powerwall logs and saw no evidence of the 9 minute grid outage that occurred. I forwarded a screenshot from my electric utility app showing the grid outage on that day. A support ticket was created and it is being forward to Tier 2 for evaluation. I was informed that currently it is taking about a week to get a response from the Tier 2 support team.
 
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My experience with the support so far has been dismal. I reported the problem of the Powerwalls not backing up my home during a nine minute grid outage and provided the CSR with documentation from my utility that showed the outage on my circuit, and a screenshot of the Powerwall backup history log that did not list any outage on that day. I did this on 2/28/22, got a case number by email, and then waited for 10 days before calling Tesla again. The first CSR did not enter the case information properly, so I was told, and therefore the case wasn’t even being evaluated. It would have been nice if I knew that earlier. At that point I was starting over and had to explain the problem again and provide documentation again. Five days later after no update from Tesla I called again and was told by the CSR that the Powerwalls did back up my house, and everything seemed fine on their end. I asked why the house was completely without power and the backup log in the app does not list an event for that day. I was told that the event was not recorded because my WiFi must have been offline because of the power outage. None of this makes sense to me because my PWs are Ethernet cable connected to a router and modem that are backed up by UPS power for about 6 hours. After thinking about this some more I think that it is possible that Tier 2 support was looking at a 6 minute grid outage the day before, where PWs did properly back up the house. I asked the first level CSR to send this back to Tier 2 to reevaluate the situation. I asked if I could speak directly with Tier 2 support.

I’m wondering if anyone has been able to speak directly with someone in Tier 2 support because it doesn’t seem like Tier 1 CSRs have enough training or knowledge to handle this type of a product. I have been dealing with two first level CSRs for more than two weeks now and have not received a credible answer as to why the PWs failed at its core function of simply backing up the house during a short 9 minute grid outage.
 
My experience with the support so far has been dismal. I reported the problem of the Powerwalls not backing up my home during a nine minute grid outage and provided the CSR with documentation from my utility that showed the outage on my circuit, and a screenshot of the Powerwall backup history log that did not list any outage on that day. I did this on 2/28/22, got a case number by email, and then waited for 10 days before calling Tesla again. The first CSR did not enter the case information properly, so I was told, and therefore the case wasn’t even being evaluated. It would have been nice if I knew that earlier. At that point I was starting over and had to explain the problem again and provide documentation again. Five days later after no update from Tesla I called again and was told by the CSR that the Powerwalls did back up my house, and everything seemed fine on their end. I asked why the house was completely without power and the backup log in the app does not list an event for that day. I was told that the event was not recorded because my WiFi must have been offline because of the power outage. None of this makes sense to me because my PWs are Ethernet cable connected to a router and modem that are backed up by UPS power for about 6 hours. After thinking about this some more I think that it is possible that Tier 2 support was looking at a 6 minute grid outage the day before, where PWs did properly back up the house. I asked the first level CSR to send this back to Tier 2 to reevaluate the situation. I asked if I could speak directly with Tier 2 support.

I’m wondering if anyone has been able to speak directly with someone in Tier 2 support because it doesn’t seem like Tier 1 CSRs have enough training or knowledge to handle this type of a product. I have been dealing with two first level CSRs for more than two weeks now and have not received a credible answer as to why the PWs failed at its core function of simply backing up the house during a short 9 minute grid outage.
My experience has been that part of the reason Tier 1 support exists is to isolate Tier 2 support. Tier 1 just puts items in the Tier 2 queue.

Any time I have put a ticket in that needed to go to Tier 2 it took 3-4 weeks before I got a response, and I was told to expect this delay by the Tier 1 rep.
 
My experience has been that part of the reason Tier 1 support exists is to isolate Tier 2 support. Tier 1 just puts items in the Tier 2 queue.

Any time I have put a ticket in that needed to go to Tier 2 it took 3-4 weeks before I got a response, and I was told to expect this delay by the Tier 1 rep.
That is good to know. The first CSR I spoke with said 1 to 2 weeks, and the second CSR said that she could get a response from Tier 2 the same day. Of course neither estimate was accurate.
 
My two cents is to keep calling in every couple of days to make sure that your case stays top of mind for them and doesn't get lost. My experience with Tier 1/2 is that the staff is more than a little variable. My other comment is that when you do finally hit a great CSR, or magician on the phone, stick with them as long as you can. It is amazing what they can pry out of Tier 2, and what they can get done on their side. I highly recommend that you keep calling, and when you a good one, make sure that they get a great recommendation afterwards.

All the best,

BG
 
That is good to know. The first CSR I spoke with said 1 to 2 weeks, and the second CSR said that she could get a response from Tier 2 the same day. Of course neither estimate was accurate.
They meant 1 to 2 weeks of Elon/home contractor time, not wall clock time!;). If we used wall clock time I would have had my replacement Model X 6 months ago instead of 6+ months from now if I am lucky. We are also in month 4 of the landscape designer being able to come by and finalize our backyard remodel
 
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My two cents is to keep calling in every couple of days to make sure that your case stays top of mind for them and doesn't get lost. My experience with Tier 1/2 is that the staff is more than a little variable. My other comment is that when you do finally hit a great CSR, or magician on the phone, stick with them as long as you can. It is amazing what they can pry out of Tier 2, and what they can get done on their side. I highly recommend that you keep calling, and when you a good one, make sure that they get a great recommendation afterwards.

All the best,

BG
I followed you advice and called Tesla Energy a few days after talking with my second Tier 1 CSR. I spoke with the third Tier 1 CSR and he told me that Tier 2 already looked at the ticket and everything was fine because the PWs backed up the house during the grid outage. After asking him why the house went dark and that the event was not recorded in the app backup history, he found that Tier 2 looked at a different grid outage on a different date where the PWs did back up the house. This Tier 1 CSR sent the ticket back to Tier 2 to reanalyze what happened on the date that PWs did not backup. So three weeks after the initial support ticket was opened I am still waiting to hear why the PWs failed.

I’m not posting this to complain, but to warn others that if you have to get a problem analyzed and fixed with your PWs it may take a very long time and may require a lot of your involvement.
 
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I’m wondering if anyone has been able to speak directly with someone in Tier 2

I havent, and I have also not read of anyone who has. As mentioned by @jboy210 , that group (tier 2 support) is not customer facing, so there is no way that I am aware of to speak directly to "tier 2" (just like there is no way to speak directly to a system designer in the pre install phase).

@BGbreeder 's advice is what I normally do if I have to call for something. "gentle, polite, repeated pressure" is what I would call it.
 
Just to let everyone know, Tier 2 support is really backlogged. It has been a 32 days since my support ticket was opened and forwarded to Tier 2, and it has not yet completed its evaluation. I have been calling every week to get the status and just got off the phone with a CSR that told me how backlogged Tier 2 is. My case was elevated to “critical“ status last week (whatever that means) I think because of the severity of the issue and how long it has been.

So you don’t have to go back and read my previous posts, the issue was that the grid went down and the Powerwalls didn’t even notice. All house circuits lost power during the entire nine minute grid outage and when the grid power was restored is when the house power was restored. After the grid was restored there is nothing recorded in the Tesla app that indicated there was a power outage. The Tier 1 CSR apparently can see more Powerwall data than I can in the app and she said that there is no evidence that a grid outage occurred.
 
Another three weeks have gone by and no call from Tesla Energy regarding the status of my case opened on 2/28/22. I decided to call today to find out the status and the CSR did not know. He told me that it looked like Tier 2 did not know why the Powerwalls did not back up my house during a grid outage and I should try a simulated grid outage test to see if it works now. I already did that last week and it worked fine. But that doesn’t explain why it didn’t work when there was an actual grid outage. After 1 hour and 15 minutes of listening to the wonderful Tesla music loop the call was disconnected and I was given the opportunity to provide feedback by taking a survey.

Be careful if you are thinking of buying Tesla products. They are very cool and technologically advanced but when something goes wrong the company provides very little customer service. I have been a Tesla car owner since 2016 and a Tesla Powerwall owner since 2018.
 

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