Incorrectly Placed Solar Roof Tiles

[SoCalSolarRoof]

spring

No, it only has backlit indicators on the front panel. However, I can see realtime string inputs and current and prior day inverter outputs using the M Professional app. The inverter output numbers line up with the Tesla app numbers, so I think the numbers are good.



Yeah - it appears that Dominion Energy provides this kind of UI for its smart meter customers. My meter got replaced as part of the roof install process. I think my new meter is a smart meter, but I'm not sure. I haven't been able to find the UI yet. I need to follow up with Dominion to see if I should have access to realtime data and if so, where I go to view the data.

Have you used the M Professional app for Android? It's great! Use the code 6532 to activate and access your inverter via Bluetooth. You have to be very close to it, I have an M8 as well and am getting loads of data. Here's the screenshot from today.

 

[SoCalSolarRoof]

A friend recently took some drone shots of my new solar roof that highlighted discrepancies between actual PV tile locations and the locations specified in my plan documents. It can be difficult to see where the PV tiles are unless you get the right camera angle and (sun) lighting. It looks like 13 out of 100 PV tiles on my south facing roof, 6 out of 42 PV tiles on my west facing garage roof, and 4 out of 28 PV tiles on my east facing garage roof are incorrectly placed.

I'm concerned that the misplaced tiles might reduce my roof's production and the obsessive/detailed side of my personality thinks this should be fixed. I'm curious what others think - is this worth worrying about? I also wondered whether any others with solar roofs have verified their PV locations.

I'm trying to decide what to do next. One idea was to ask the Tesla designer to rerun his plan with my actual layout to show me if there is any difference in expected production. I'm not sure how detailed their modeling is. In general, it seems to me that placing PV tiles higher up on the roof and further from walls or adjoining roofs would be best.

Here are photos of the roof areas with the misplaced tiles marked with red dots and their plan locations marked with white dots.

View attachment 621587 View attachment 621588 View attachment 621589

They did the same thing to me, and they missed 2 tiles! Good thing I took done shots and counted...

 

[aesculus]

Have you used the M Professional app for Android? It's great! Use the code 6532 to activate and access your inverter via Bluetooth.

A bit off topic but today Tesla dropped off a Solar Gateway for me to install. It only supports Ethernet and not Wifi to the net. I had to supply a wifi extender with an Ethernet port. My luck with these has to be classified as poor but this seemed to hook up OK.

But what I don't understand is how I can get the data from Tesla it's reporting through the Solar Gateway.

They also said this was the way Tesla would update the FW in the inverter.

 

[SoCalSolarRoof]

A bit off topic but today Tesla dropped off a Solar Gateway for me to install. It only supports Ethernet and not Wifi to the net. I had to supply a wifi extender with an Ethernet port. My luck with these has to be classified as poor but this seemed to hook up OK.

But what I don't understand is how I can get the data from Tesla it's reporting through the Solar Gateway.

They also said this was the way Tesla would update the FW in the inverter.

It connects to the inverter via zigbee, which is why it needs to be close to the inverter. Surprisingly, I have mine on the second story ~30ft from my inverter and it connects!

All the Gateway sends is the aggregated output data that shows up in the Tesla app. They won't set the app up into your PTO comes through. Mine started working within a couple of hours of getting the PTO email.

 

[aesculus]

All the Gateway sends is the aggregated output data that shows up in the Tesla app. They won't set the app up into your PTO comes through. Mine started working within a couple of hours of getting the PTO email.

OK. Still waiting for that little nugget. Not holding my breath at this point and frankly don't care. I have so many PTOs now what's one more?