How to Test my powerwall install for functionality?

[CAP23]

Hi,
I am looking for advice. I have 3 power wall system installed by Tesla about a year ago. Last week we lost grid power for about an hour. We lost all power in the house, the power wall did not kick in. I got on a chat with Tesla and this tech had me switching the PWs off and on and switching off breakers on the wall panel. The tech said he would need to raise the issue to tier 2 and they would get to me in a few days. The local utility turned on the power to the grid after about an hour and all worked fine. Today, a week later, I chated with tech again and now they say all looks fine and I may get an answer in 15 business days. So here are the areas I would like advice about:

1. Is there a way to test my system to see if is working.
2 What switch would turn off power that would be like the grid going down?
3. Is there way to print out or get an image of these chat calls. The tech declined to provide a file.

Thanks,
Chuck

 

[jjrandorin]

1. Yes
2. Your main electrical breaker to your house, to simulate a power outage.
3. No idea, if they didnt send it to you and you didnt screen cap it, perhaps its i temp files on your computer somewhere but thats something you would need to fish for to see if it exists.

 

[EVRider-FL]

You can also use the Go Off-Grid feature on the Energy screen in the mobile app, but turning off the main breaker is probably easier if you have access.

 

[jjrandorin]

You can also use the Go Off-Grid feature on the Energy screen in the mobile app, but turning off the main breaker is probably easier if you have access.

When people are asking about "real" off grid tests, I dont recommend the feature in the app because i dont consider that a real test. Its the tesla gateway controlling power, but you are still actually on the grid so its not like a real power outage.

 

[aristobrat]

2. Your main electrical breaker to your house, to simulate a power outage.

Hopefully their system isn’t setup like mine:

1. Single panel for the whole house
2. Tesla Backup Switch instead of Gateway
3. Tesla uses vampire taps to combine their power with utility power at the top of panel before main breaker.

The Backup Switch has a manual way to disconnect from utility power but I think it says not to expose that switch (you have to unscrew a panel) unless support tells you to.

 

[CAP23]

1. Yes
2. Your main electrical breaker to your house, to simulate a power outage.
3. No idea, if they didnt send it to you and you didnt screen cap it, perhaps its i temp files on your computer somewhere but thats something you would need to fish for to see if it exists.

Thank you for the quick and helpful advice. I am trying to understand the comment concerning the main breaker. I have included several photos since I have limited knowledge of the system. First is the Main Breaker the large switch on the bottom of the wall mounted breaker panel? I have also included photos of the exterior electrical installation and the 3 power wall in the garage.
If the main breaker is the one I described above I tried out turning it off. Result was immediate loss of power everywhere in the house.

Thanks,
Chuck

 

[yblaser]

Thank you for the quick and helpful advice. I am trying to understand the comment concerning the main breaker. I have included several photos since I have limited knowledge of the system. First is the Main Breaker the large switch on the bottom of the wall mounted breaker panel? I have also included photos of the exterior electrical installation and the 3 power wall in the garage.
If the main breaker is the one I described above I tried out turning it off. Result was immediate loss of power everywhere in the house.

Thanks,
Chuck

It's the big red Eaton blade disconnect switch to the left of your meter.

 

[CAP23]

It's the big red Eaton blade disconnect switch to the left of your meter.

Yblaser,
Let me clarify that the large switch handle on the left of the meter will cut off grid power going to the meter. Do I have that right?
Thanks,
Chuck

 

[cwied]

Yblaser,
Let me clarify that the large switch handle on the left of the meter will cut off grid power going to the meter. Do I have that right?
Thanks,
Chuck

Actually, I think it will cut off power coming from the meter to the Tesla Energy Gateway. This will disconnect your house from the grid.

 

[CAP23]

Actually, I think it will cut off power coming from the meter to the Tesla Energy Gateway. This will disconnect your house from the grid.

Thanks for the information. Would this mean that grid power runs from the meter to the Red Eaton switch to the house breaker panel? Guess I'll test this tomorrow. Thanks again for the education. Chuck

 

[yblaser]

Yblaser,
Let me clarify that the large switch handle on the left of the meter will cut off grid power going to the meter. Do I have that right?
Thanks,
Chuck

As @cwied pointed out the disconnect is between the meter in the gateway, but yes it will cut your house from the grid and allow the Tesla system to take over. The previous switch you tried is after the gateway so cut your house completely off from the grid and from the Tesla system. I'm assuming the layout looks something like this based on your pictures:

Grid--->Meter--->Disconnect--->Gateway--->House Subpanel--->House Loads
                                  ^
                                  |
                                  |
                              PWs & Solar

 

[jhn_]

Grid--->Meter--->Disconnect--->Gateway--->House Subpanel--->House Loads
^
|
|
PWs & Solar

Love the ASCII art.

 

[CAP23]

As @cwied pointed out the disconnect is between the meter in the gateway, but yes it will cut your house from the grid and allow the Tesla system to take over. The previous switch you tried is after the gateway so cut your house completely off from the grid and from the Tesla system. I'm assuming the layout looks something like this based on your pictures:

Grid--->Meter--->Disconnect--->Gateway--->House Subpanel--->House Loads
                                  ^
                                  |
                                  |
                              PWs & Solar

Thanks again, I used the red switch to turn off the grid power this morning. According to the Tesla app the grid power was off but the power worked. The telsa system turned on so quickly that did not noticed it. So I guess the system works when that switch is thrown.
While I feel good about the power walls working when I turn the switch down and grid power is used when I turn the switch back up I still question why I got no power when the grid went down. If any theories come to mind I would be glad to hear them.
Thanks,
Chuck

 

[jhn_]

Thanks again, I used the red switch to turn off the grid power this morning. According to the Tesla app the grid power was off but the power worked. The telsa system turned on so quickly that did not noticed it. So I guess the system works when that switch is thrown.
While I feel good about the power walls working when I turn the switch down and grid power is used when I turn the switch back up I still question why I got no power when the grid went down. If any theories come to mind I would be glad to hear them.
Thanks,
Chuck

That’s good news that in a controlled test the system works as intended. Now the tricky part of narrowing down why it couldn’t work during the real grid outage.

Two of the most common reasons are that the house load at the time of the grid failure was larger than the Powerwalls could support, or the grid was not completely out, but was more of a brown out or over/under voltage situation that confused the Tesla Gateway. Were any EVs charging during the outage when the Powerwalls didn’t turn on?

 

[jjrandorin]

That’s good news that in a controlled test the system works as intended. Now the tricky part of narrowing down why it couldn’t work during the real grid outage.

Two of the most common reasons are that the house load at the time of the dried failure was larger than the Powerwalls could support, and the grid was not completely out, but was more of a brown out or over/under voltage situation that confused the Tesla Gateway. Were any EVs charging during the outage when the Powerwalls didn’t turn on?

I was thinking about this thread myself as well, wondering what I might be able to suggest to the OP. Since the OP has 3 powerwalls, to me, that makes it a bit more unlikely its a "home load is too much for the powerwalls" scenario. Of course I realize its possible, but 3 powerwalls / 15kW is a fairly large amount of power. If there are heat pumps or other larger loads involved, that certainly could be the case though.

My initial guess would be a "non clean power cut", just like your second suggestion, especially since with the test the OP did, a clean drop did work.

If it were me, I think I would stay after tesla to do a root cause analysis for what happened.

 

[jhn_]

I was thinking about this thread myself as well, wondering what I might be able to suggest to the OP. Since the OP has 3 powerwalls, to me, that makes it a bit more unlikely its a "home load is too much for the powerwalls" scenario. Of course I realize its possible, but 3 powerwalls / 15kW is a fairly large amount of power. If there are heat pumps or other larger loads involved, that certainly could be the case though.

My initial guess would be a "non clean power cut", just like your second suggestion, especially since with the test the OP did, a clean drop did work.

If it were me, I think I would stay after tesla to do a root cause analysis for what happened.

Yes, definitely stay after Tesla to get more info. The TEG should have a log with more detail.

The OP does have two Tesla’s listed in their signature, if they were both plugged in when the grid outage occurred that would have been more than 3 Powerwalls could handle in default charging configuration.

 

[CAP23]

That’s good news that in a controlled test the system works as intended. Now the tricky part of narrowing down why it couldn’t work during the real grid outage.

Two of the most common reasons are that the house load at the time of the grid failure was larger than the Powerwalls could support, or the grid was not completely out, but was more of a brown out or over/under voltage situation that confused the Tesla Gateway. Were any EVs charging during the outage when the Powerwalls didn’t turn on?

You may be on to something. Power usage was modest at the time and had good sunlight and while I am not certain believe I was exporting to the grid at the time. The dryer was not running but one of the Teslas was connected to the wall connector but only from the standpoint that after driving that car at the end of the prior day it was plugged into the wall connector in order to charge. So it had been connected for the past 14 to 16 hours and probably hit my set charge of 85% after just an hour or two. Now the "brown out issue" is possible too. The electricity went from full-on, to several blinks, to what seemed like low power to full off for a couple of hours. All this within a minute I guess.
If the tier two techs who are supposed to study my situation in 4 weeks provide the same level of no service I have received to date I guess if this were to happen again I could try that red switch to try to get my system to work. I do hope they figure out the issue.
Thanks for sticking with this issue.
Chuck