Long time listener, first time caller in the energy category. Last year I had Tesla install a 10 kW solar system, and it was a pretty terrible experience. One inverter was wired incorrectly, the other was configured incorrectly, so I was actually capturing less than half of what the system could produce. Then they wouldn't come out to check it because they had not heard from the utility, even though a tech had seen the door tag, so they wouldn't turn on monitoring. To top it off, they underprovisioned one of the inverters, so I'm clipping an hour or two a day in typical Florida sun, probably missing out on a kWh or 2 every day.
So while my trust with Tesla is already pretty low given how inept they were with the install, after two years of waiting for a Powerwall 2 earned by referral, they're ready put one in for me. My solar setup consists of two parts: 4 kW of panels on a 4.2 kW inverter, and 6 kW of panels on a 5 kW inverter. I don't fully understand what happens between the inverters and the meter, but from the mains there are two 150 amp panels and a 40 amp circuit directly to one of my AC pumps outside (the second one is wired to one of the panels, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me).
For my "free" Powerwall, which I'll have to pay them to install, they're saying that in a power outage situation, only the 5 kW inverter can feed my house, so I'll lose half of my generation while disconnected from the grid. I realize the Powerwall can only take something like 7 kW as an input, but that they can't make this work leaves me skeptical.
I do realize that the Powerwall probably requires some circuit shuffling so it can power just the essentials in an extended outage (think hurricane), but the suggestion that I have to leave half the solar system idle, unless I buy a second unit of course, leaves me feeling like their system is terrible or they just don't know what they're doing.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
So while my trust with Tesla is already pretty low given how inept they were with the install, after two years of waiting for a Powerwall 2 earned by referral, they're ready put one in for me. My solar setup consists of two parts: 4 kW of panels on a 4.2 kW inverter, and 6 kW of panels on a 5 kW inverter. I don't fully understand what happens between the inverters and the meter, but from the mains there are two 150 amp panels and a 40 amp circuit directly to one of my AC pumps outside (the second one is wired to one of the panels, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me).
For my "free" Powerwall, which I'll have to pay them to install, they're saying that in a power outage situation, only the 5 kW inverter can feed my house, so I'll lose half of my generation while disconnected from the grid. I realize the Powerwall can only take something like 7 kW as an input, but that they can't make this work leaves me skeptical.
I do realize that the Powerwall probably requires some circuit shuffling so it can power just the essentials in an extended outage (think hurricane), but the suggestion that I have to leave half the solar system idle, unless I buy a second unit of course, leaves me feeling like their system is terrible or they just don't know what they're doing.
Any thoughts or suggestions?