Los Angeles LADWP - Solar & Powerwalls

[coffeeplease]

Trying to learn as much as possible it's making my brain hurt. Currently have Tesla Model 3 2022 LR and our average monthly electric bill in current home is about $150 - $200 a month just for the 2 of us, absolutely no plans to make our household grow.
Honestly where I live, we don't get much black outs. They're very rare and only last for less than 30 minutes where I currently live in SFV Los Angeles.

I will be moving with my wife into a new home 1900 sqft and we have a large portion of our roof that is facing directly SOUTH, which is great news? Do I really need powerwalls? What makes more sense is get as much solar panels on the roof to build up my BANK credit with LADWP which doesn't expire because they don't participate in the new NEM policies for solar.

Any of you under LADWP with tesla solar + powerwalls can elaborate or anyone make sense of needing power walls at all? Thank you.

 

[arnolddeleon]

It all depends on what you are paying and what your goals are.

Solar is just another way of setting the cost per kWh with some uncertainty that can work for and/or against you (i.e. you might produce more, or extra repair costs). Solar will probably cost somewhere between $0.08/kWh to over $0.30/kWh depending on bunch of factors. If your cost of electricity is always greater than your cost for solar then it is super simple. In many parts of California with Investor Owed Utilities (IOU) this was true.

NEM 3.0 has changed things, so you don't get nearly enough credit for solar you send to grid to offset your cost. That's one of the places where a battery can make a difference. You store your solar for your own use so you get more value of it. You have model the cost of the kWh that are you are going run through a battery system to see if it will make sense to do so. If memory serves, it was around $0.10 kWh additional cost to run through a battery system. So if the cost of solar + battery is still less than cost of grid power it is a win. Lots of hidden assumptions there. For me, the Powerwalls will roughly break even at around 10 years (their warrantied life). Basically, I get backup power for "free". One surprising thing is that by having enough batteries I can pretty much ignore time of use rates. This is nice quality of life benefit.

You should do your own calculations; I'm just illustrating how to look at it.

It appears that LADWP is not affected by NEM 3.0 If this is true then I would spend my money on getting as much solar as possible and forget batteries. I predict in 2 to 3 years, vehicle to load/home will be quite common. The "ideal" configuration will probably be a "smallish" battery that is part of the home (so it is always there) augmented by the "big" battery in EVs. The cool thing about using EVs for home power is that if you have extended local outage, you could conceivably drive a little distance out, charge and then bring home some power for the house.

 

[jjrandorin]

Trying to learn as much as possible it's making my brain hurt. Currently have Tesla Model 3 2022 LR and our average monthly electric bill in current home is about $150 - $200 a month just for the 2 of us, absolutely no plans to make our household grow.
Honestly where I live, we don't get much black outs. They're very rare and only last for less than 30 minutes where I currently live in SFV Los Angeles.

I will be moving with my wife into a new home 1900 sqft and we have a large portion of our roof that is facing directly SOUTH, which is great news? Do I really need powerwalls? What makes more sense is get as much solar panels on the roof to build up my BANK credit with LADWP which doesn't expire because they don't participate in the new NEM policies for solar.

Any of you under LADWP with tesla solar + powerwalls can elaborate or anyone make sense of needing power walls at all? Thank you.

This sort of boils down to:

1. Do you think that LADWP will "never" follow along with NEM 3.0 (or at least not as long as you plan on being in that home?)
2. Do you anticipate that you will never have the desire to have backup power in this location?

If you dont think that LADWP will ever move to anything that looks like NEM 3.0, and you dont put any value on having backup power, then you probably dont want powerwalls.

It also doesnt make much sense to get either unless you are planning on being in that home for years. If this is a place you plan on being a while, PV makes sense. If not, it kind of doesnt.

 

[stagepuppy]

I posted this earlier this year: PTO happened crazy fast

No guarantee they won't go to full NEM3.0 but they're already kind of a hybrid NEM2/3 with the very limited credit amount. I also don't think they are too averse to overbuilding solar generation as they don't do a cash true-up,

As most have said here, it is still financially best to build as much solar as you can, unless you have no tolerance for blackouts. Since you have a BEV, get a ton of solar. As long as you are a net generator, you won't suffer the awful compensation rate.

Like you, I rarely see blackouts up here near Hansen Dam, but did get a 14 hour test within the first month of PTO. Dec 30th storm 2021, I have multi zone mini split heat pumps and was already at about 30% left for 2 PW2, had to shut down some servers and leave the living room cold, after waking hours. I didn't know power was out (I think it was 3:30or 5:30am?) until my neighbor called asking why my porch light was still on. I managed to eke out power on an overcast day until it came back on around 5pm, PWs were down to mid single digits. I am of the thinking that 3 PW2 is the minimum now, with 4-6 a much better case, but it's still dependent on my limited 9.2KWDC harvesting. Going to 12-16KWDC would give more benefits per buck and that would help against the cost of more PWs to help charge them faster.

 

[coffeeplease]

LADWP customers, how has your experience been?

I just put in the order for 13 kWh solar panels no PW as it's an added luxury for my scenario.