Grid outage - PowerWall not allowing solar production

[Steve2498]

I experienced a grid outage at 1:30 AM last night. Powerwall kicked in as expected. Current SOC is 71% and I would normally be producing solar at this point in the day. However, PowerWall is keeping the frequency at 62Hz Keeping the inverters offline.

I called support and Tesla said this is expected and the PowerWalls won’t enable solar until it gets to a critically low SOC-like ~30%. Can anyone confirm this is expected behavior?

thanks.

 

[dailo]

Which solar system do you have? 30% would seem too low for me. With PW+ with integrated solar it kicks in my 80%.

 

[Lloyd]

Not correct.

Mine today.

 

[ptdusn]

I would shut stormwatch off to get PVs to kick in

 

[Steve2498]

Thanks. It didn’t sound reasonable. How can I best push back on the tier 1 support people who say something with authorit when you know they are not correct?

storm watch is currently turned off.

 

[Steve2498]

Thanks. It didn’t sound reasonable. How can I best push back on the tier 1 support people who say something with authorit when you know they are not correct?

storm watch is current turned off.

Called back to support. This time they agreed it should be producing solar. They had me toggle the rocker switches on each of the PowerWalls. That did nothing.

She then said they can’t do any troubleshooting until the grid comes back online and to call them back when that happens.

what a PITA!

 

[Ampster]

I experienced a grid outage at 1:30 AM last night.

I had a similar one in Kenwood that must have had a surge or something that knocked my hybrid inverter off line but the power is back. I had to reboot my inverter.

 

[cali8484]

Perhaps you can try turning on a large load to see if if gets PW to shift back to normal frequency.

 

[jjrandorin]

I experienced a grid outage at 1:30 AM last night. Powerwall kicked in as expected. Current SOC is 71% and I would normally be producing solar at this point in the day. However, PowerWall is keeping the frequency at 62Hz Keeping the inverters offline.

I called support and Tesla said this is expected and the PowerWalls won’t enable solar until it gets to a critically low SOC-like ~30%. Can anyone confirm this is expected behavior?

thanks.

I have not tested this in quite some time (over 9 months) but this doesnt sound correct. I know that you said the second tier 2 person stated it was not correct, but I am confirming it was not that way for me either.

Something may have changed in the firmware recently, but in my case solar used to come back on around 92-93%

 

[Steve2498]

Update…

called support a 3rd time today after power came back on. This person agreed this was not correct behavior. Her diagnostics simply confirmed what I had told her…power goes out, frequency jumps to 65Hz then tapers to 62Hz and stays there until grid comes back on line (8 hours later). She kicked it up to tier 2. I also asked her to request dropping the max frequency to 62.5Hz.

 

[gpez]

Update…

called support a 3rd time today after power came back on. This person agreed this was not correct behavior. Her diagnostics simply confirmed what I had told her…power goes out, frequency jumps to 65Hz then tapers to 62Hz and stays there until grid comes back on line (8 hours later). She kicked it up to tier 2. I also asked her to request dropping the max frequency to 62.5Hz.

Staying over 62hz after the Powerwall is under even 90% seems excessive. Glad you're at least making progress, your approach is correct!

FWIW my max frequency is 62hz and it drops to 60hz when the Powerwall is at about 93%.

Note to all new Powerwall owners to test this scenario fully before the install crew is done

 

[jboy210]

Staying over 62hz after the Powerwall is under even 90% seems excessive. Glad you're at least making progress, your approach is correct!

FWIW my max frequency is 62hz and it drops to 60hz when the Powerwall is at about 93%.

Note to all new Powerwall owners to test this scenario fully before the install crew is done

Agreed. But on numerous threads this seems to be the new normal. Mine goes to around 95+% before the frequency starts to rise. I hope some random update does not change this.

 

[rodezio]

do you manage to solve the problem? same issue here.

 

[Steve2498]

do you manage to solve the problem? same issue here.

Yes. I had to get the installer involved to speak directly to Tesla support. Tesla made some kind of a change on their end to fix it, but the installer doesn’t know what exactly they changed.