Model S - HPWC (High Power Wall Connector)

[Bugeater]

I had Solar City install my HPWC early this year. They also upgraded my electrical service from 100 amp to 200 amp. I was then planning and am currently doing a home addition and remodel so the service upgrade was for both. Today I got an email from them saying they were cutting my cost nearly in half! I'm very happy!!! Has anyone else had or heard of this happening?

 

[robatbeach]

Got my HPWC installed ahead of my imminent Tesla delivery. Looking good near the solar inverter. :biggrin:

 

[pilotSteve]

I've had my HPWC for 6 months now. Today was one of the days I am SO happy to have it. Start out the morning with a 200 (rated) mile charge in my S85, but its cold (25°F and snow on the back roads). I drove about 90 miles today running errands, and end up back in the garage with about 60 miles showing. [hey its cold, we use about 20-30% more energy].

Then I discovered I'd forgotten my briefcase with laptop in it back at the office. Thats a 60 mile round trip! Thanks to 80A/240V charging I had lunch for just over an hour and added 65 miles range. Made my drive, arrived back with 40 miles reserve.

What could have been uncomfortable was easy and exactly as predicted. I love my "mini supercharger" HPWC.

 

[PatP]

I've had my HPWC for 6 months now. Today was one of the days I am SO happy to have it. Start out the morning with a 200 (rated) mile charge in my S85, but its cold (25°F and snow on the back roads). I drove about 90 miles today running errands, and end up back in the garage with about 60 miles showing. [hey its cold, we use about 20-30% more energy].

Then I discovered I'd forgotten my briefcase with laptop in it back at the office. Thats a 60 mile round trip! Thanks to 80A/240V charging I had lunch for just over an hour and added 65 miles range. Made my drive, arrived back with 40 miles reserve.

What could have been uncomfortable was easy and exactly as predicted. I love my "mini supercharger" HPWC.

That's also the reason I bought an HPWC. Last minute unplanned trip. For the rest of the time it's not needed.

 

[NOLA_Mike]

Then I discovered I'd forgotten my briefcase with laptop in it back at the office. Thats a 60 mile round trip! Thanks to 80A/240V charging I had lunch for just over an hour and added 65 miles range. Made my drive, arrived back with 40 miles reserve.

Or... you subconsciously left your brief case at the office ON PURPOSE so that you could drive the Model S again for another 120 miles.

That's my theory anyway...

Mike

 

[gpetti]

Hi,
I've read a lot of pages of this but (though not all) so apologies if this is redundant. I ordered an HPWC to install in my garage. It turns out that my service is 150 amps which according to my electrician is actually higher than many residences in Calgary that typically have 100A - thus he didn't seem too worried about my setting the charger for 80A. The advice on this thread seems to suggest that one should have more like a 200A service if I want to run the charger at 80A. My electrician also didn't seem too worried about the 150A as the amount of current that will be drawn concurrently is very unlikely to be this high, particularly if I'm charging overnight. I guess its up to me to assess (and measure if possible) what my average draw is before I add another 80A to it but any advice or guidance is welcome. Am I being naïve or foolhardy to try to run the charger at the fully capacity with only a 150A service? I'm also curious if other Canadian locations typically have more or less than this. I guess I can always set the HPWC to a lower threshold if my provisioning turns out to be unrealistic. Not sure how much it would cost to raise my level of service.

 

[yobigd20]

Hi,
I've read a lot of pages of this but (though not all) so apologies if this is redundant. I ordered an HPWC to install in my garage. It turns out that my service is 150 amps which according to my electrician is actually higher than many residences in Calgary that typically have 100A - thus he didn't seem too worried about my setting the charger for 80A. The advice on this thread seems to suggest that one should have more like a 200A service if I want to run the charger at 80A. My electrician also didn't seem too worried about the 150A as the amount of current that will be drawn concurrently is very unlikely to be this high, particularly if I'm charging overnight. I guess its up to me to assess (and measure if possible) what my average draw is before I add another 80A to it but any advice or guidance is welcome. Am I being naïve or foolhardy to try to run the charger at the fully capacity with only a 150A service? I'm also curious if other Canadian locations typically have more or less than this. I guess I can always set the HPWC to a lower threshold if my provisioning turns out to be unrealistic. Not sure how much it would cost to raise my level of service.

You'd probably be cutting it close if you were running a big A/C unit (240V@30A), charging car 240V@80A, cooking simultaneously in microwave & oven (240V@30A), running a jacuzzi + water pump (240V@~30A), and your wife blow drying her hair simultaneously (??A....tends to trip a GFCI every now and then lol) plus tvs , computers, lights, etc. In my home that'd probably be around 170A-180A. You're probably fine. Remember, you don't NEED to charge at 80A. You could just set it to 40 or 60 if that makes you feel more comfortable.

 

[JakeP]

Hi,
I've read a lot of pages of this but (though not all) so apologies if this is redundant. I ordered an HPWC to install in my garage. It turns out that my service is 150 amps which according to my electrician is actually higher than many residences in Calgary that typically have 100A - thus he didn't seem too worried about my setting the charger for 80A. The advice on this thread seems to suggest that one should have more like a 200A service if I want to run the charger at 80A. My electrician also didn't seem too worried about the 150A as the amount of current that will be drawn concurrently is very unlikely to be this high, particularly if I'm charging overnight. I guess its up to me to assess (and measure if possible) what my average draw is before I add another 80A to it but any advice or guidance is welcome. Am I being naïve or foolhardy to try to run the charger at the fully capacity with only a 150A service? I'm also curious if other Canadian locations typically have more or less than this. I guess I can always set the HPWC to a lower threshold if my provisioning turns out to be unrealistic. Not sure how much it would cost to raise my level of service.

Gpetti-

My service is 200A, but it consists of two split 100A mains. That means when I run the HPWC at 80A continuous draw, I am taking up almost all the power for half the house. That has never been a problem for me, though I find I rarely use the HPWC over 40A, and only use 80A when a rapid charge is mandatory. I just did this last night for a Plugshare user traveling from Chicago to Philly in cold temps overnight, in a 60kWh! You set the car on what amperage/rate of charge to use at your location, and it remembers. If you are in a hurry, you just turn it up. Love the HPWC though, it looks great and us much more robust and convenient than the UMC connector.

 

[Mayhemm]

Hi,
I've read a lot of pages of this but (though not all) so apologies if this is redundant. I ordered an HPWC to install in my garage. It turns out that my service is 150 amps which according to my electrician is actually higher than many residences in Calgary that typically have 100A - thus he didn't seem too worried about my setting the charger for 80A. The advice on this thread seems to suggest that one should have more like a 200A service if I want to run the charger at 80A. My electrician also didn't seem too worried about the 150A as the amount of current that will be drawn concurrently is very unlikely to be this high, particularly if I'm charging overnight. I guess its up to me to assess (and measure if possible) what my average draw is before I add another 80A to it but any advice or guidance is welcome. Am I being naïve or foolhardy to try to run the charger at the fully capacity with only a 150A service? I'm also curious if other Canadian locations typically have more or less than this. I guess I can always set the HPWC to a lower threshold if my provisioning turns out to be unrealistic. Not sure how much it would cost to raise my level of service.

I'm relatively new at this, but I can't see a 150A service being a problem in Calgary. Presumably your heating and cooking are natural gas so this would offset much of the load on the system. We have a 200A service in our home and it will likely need to be upgraded or at least reconfigured before I can install my own HPWC. However, this is because my entire home (heating, cooling, cooking, etc) is electric. We have no access to natural gas here.

The only time you may run into possible issues is in a situation like yobigd20 describes above, where everything that can possibly be running is running. Under normal usage habits, you should be fine. And, like you said, you can always turn down the juice on the HPWC or in the car if you need to.

 

[neroden]

Hi,
I've read a lot of pages of this but (though not all) so apologies if this is redundant. I ordered an HPWC to install in my garage. It turns out that my service is 150 amps which according to my electrician is actually higher than many residences in Calgary that typically have 100A - thus he didn't seem too worried about my setting the charger for 80A. The advice on this thread seems to suggest that one should have more like a 200A service if I want to run the charger at 80A. My electrician also didn't seem too worried about the 150A as the amount of current that will be drawn concurrently is very unlikely to be this high, particularly if I'm charging overnight. I guess its up to me to assess (and measure if possible) what my average draw is before I add another 80A to it but any advice or guidance is welcome.

A few ways to do a rough assessment:
(1) Look at your electrical bill. Your current usage per month will be measured in kilowatt-hours. Divide by 30 * 24 = 72 hours per month to get kilowatts; multiply by 1000 to get watts; divide by 240 Volts to get amps. This is your average amperage load. Guess that your peak load is no more than twice that if you have a typical day/night usage pattern. Do you still have enough "headroom" in amperage for your 80A circuit? (And are you actually going to use that circuit while everything else in the house is running? -- if not, you probably only need enough headroom over average load.)
(2) If that looks good, but you're still worried about peak load -- look at your existing 240 volt circuits and add them up, ignoring the 120V circuits which are probably insignificant for peak load.

Finally, if your amperage load is high and you don't have any 240V circuits to speak of, figure out why and reduce it. It's likely to be lighting, which is easy to fix. Lighting load is startlingly enormous in most houses. I switched from incandescents to LEDs across my 2 bedroom house, and saved enough electricity to power my car.

So yeah, I wouldn't worry about your 150 amp circuit unless your house is an energy hog. If you have a lot of 240 V electric appliances and you run them all at once, however, then you should add it up.

 

[gpetti]

Thanks to everyone who responded this was really helpful. It kind of goes along with my (and the electricians) thinking but this gives me much more comfort. Can't wait to install the HPWC, it makes things "real".

 

[Mayhemm]

A few ways to do a rough assessment:
(1) Look at your electrical bill. Your current usage per month will be measured in kilowatt-hours. Divide by 30 * 24 = 72 hours per month to get kilowatts; multiply by 1000 to get watts; divide by 240 Volts to get amps. This is your average amperage load. Guess that your peak load is no more than twice that if you have a typical day/night usage pattern. Do you still have enough "headroom" in amperage for your 80A circuit? (And are you actually going to use that circuit while everything else in the house is running? -- if not, you probably only need enough headroom over average load.)

Just trying to do this for myself using your instructions. Wouldn't you divide by 720 (30 x 24), not 72? Also, wouldn't the HPWC need a 100A circuit, or do you use the continuous draw current (80A)?

Doing this, I got an average load of 42.7A for my home. Doubling that (for the rare occasions where I want to charge while running something else) would provide a peak load of 85.4A on a 200A service. Going by that, I should be okay with a full-draw HPWC, right?

 

[jerry33]

Just trying to do this for myself using your instructions. Wouldn't you divide by 720 (30 x 24), not 72? Also, wouldn't the HPWC need a 100A circuit, or do you use the continuous draw current (80A)?

You have to use the continuous load of 80 amps for a 100 amp breaker with the HPWC, if you're going to use it full blast.

 

[Mayhemm]

You have to use the continuous load of 80 amps for a 100 amp breaker with the HPWC, if you're going to use it full blast.

Ok, good. I suppose that means my 200A service can only draw a maximum of 160A then?

85.4 + 80 = 165.4A = 5.4A (too much)

I'll probably still be OK since I calculate using peak load. Don't think I'll run everything all the time. :wink:

 

[PhilBa]

Hmmm. A couple of points:

- 200 Amp service is 200 Amps. The derating is for continuous service. Many of your loads aren't continuous at their max rating. Motors typically have much higher start up load than continuous. An electric oven cycles on and off to maintain your set temperature. Same for electric water heaters.

- Instead of figuring average usage and then guessing at peak load, I would look at all the big loads you have in the house. First do a worst case scenario - everything coming on at the same time. Then dial that back with a typical scenario and consider continuous rather than peak. For example, oven is used only during the afternoon, early evening. Heat pump kicks in at it's max rating but runs quite a bit lower after that. Water heater (if electric) probably only cycles to keep the water hot except for the morning after showers, maybe a little in evening after dishes are done. Then use that to figure out if there is a time slot that wouldn't overload your service. For example, setting the charging to happen in the late evening, early morning when the heat is turned down and everyone is asleep.

 

[Mayhemm]

Hmmm. A couple of points:

- 200 Amp service is 200 Amps. The derating is for continuous service. Many of your loads aren't continuous at their max rating. Motors typically have much higher start up load than continuous. An electric oven cycles on and off to maintain your set temperature. Same for electric water heaters.

- Instead of figuring average usage and then guessing at peak load, I would look at all the big loads you have in the house. First do a worst case scenario - everything coming on at the same time. Then dial that back with a typical scenario and consider continuous rather than peak. For example, oven is used only during the afternoon, early evening. Heat pump kicks in at it's max rating but runs quite a bit lower after that. Water heater (if electric) probably only cycles to keep the water hot except for the morning after showers, maybe a little in evening after dishes are done. Then use that to figure out if there is a time slot that wouldn't overload your service. For example, setting the charging to happen in the late evening, early morning when the heat is turned down and everyone is asleep.

If I actually get 200A with my 200A service, then I have nothing to be concerned about even during a worst-case scenario since I only need ~165A. Assuming my calculation is even in the right ballpark...

The reason I guessed for my peak load (and guessed quite high) is that my usage pattern is very erratic. I can't really say "I use the oven at this time of day, and the water heater at this time of day". It's all pretty random, so I'd be most comfortable having enough overhead to charge while everything is running. This will probably never occur, but I'd like to be able to plug in whenever, without having to check what's operating in the house first.

 

[gpetti]

A few ways to do a rough assessment:
(1) Look at your electrical bill. Your current usage per month will be measured in kilowatt-hours. Divide by 30 * 24 = 72 hours per month to get kilowatts; multiply by 1000 to get watts; divide by 240 Volts to get amps. This is your average amperage load. Guess that your peak load is no more than twice that if you have a typical day/night usage pattern. Do you still have enough "headroom" in amperage for your 80A circuit? (And are you actually going to use that circuit while everything else in the house is running? -- if not, you probably only need enough headroom over average load.)
(2) If that looks good, but you're still worried about peak load -- look at your existing 240 volt circuits and add them up, ignoring the 120V circuits which are probably insignificant for peak load.

Finally, if your amperage load is high and you don't have any 240V circuits to speak of, figure out why and reduce it. It's likely to be lighting, which is easy to fix. Lighting load is startlingly enormous in most houses. I switched from incandescents to LEDs across my 2 bedroom house, and saved enough electricity to power my car.

So yeah, I wouldn't worry about your 150 amp circuit unless your house is an energy hog. If you have a lot of 240 V electric appliances and you run them all at once, however, then you should add it up.

I did the math from my electricity bills (picking a high one) and it comes down to only 10A average which surprises me - though due to backed up filing I didn't find a summer bill (we have AC). Even so this seems very low. I do have a few 240V appliances: 2 AC units, an Electric Dryer, Double electric ovens, Electric Induction Cooktop, Hot tub so I'll probably do a bit more analysis. I guess its not impossible to have the hot tub heater/pump running while the AC is on and the dryer running. Cooking will usually be fairly restricted in times but theoretically there could be a perfect storm of pumps firing up in unison that could be a problem if I was charging at the same time so I might dial down the power for general night time charging just to avoid blowing the main breaker in the middle of the night or something.
Anyway I'll take the various recommendations here and as suggested, I can always restrict my charging to after midnight and dial it down a bit for typical charging where I won't need a high current.

 

[Cottonwood]

I did the math from my electricity bills (picking a high one) and it comes down to only 10A average which surprises me - though due to backed up filing I didn't find a summer bill (we have AC). Even so this seems very low. I do have a few 240V appliances: 2 AC units, an Electric Dryer, Double electric ovens, Electric Induction Cooktop, Hot tub so I'll probably do a bit more analysis. I guess its not impossible to have the hot tub heater/pump running while the AC is on and the dryer running. Cooking will usually be fairly restricted in times but theoretically there could be a perfect storm of pumps firing up in unison that could be a problem if I was charging at the same time so I might dial down the power for general night time charging just to avoid blowing the main breaker in the middle of the night or something.
Anyway I'll take the various recommendations here and as suggested, I can always restrict my charging to after midnight and dial it down a bit for typical charging where I won't need a high current.

For $200 and installation, you can measure the actual usage over time, both before and after your HPWC install. This will let you see actual numbers, and log them down to second resolution, with an easy web interface.

TED 5000-G The Energy Detective - Compatible With Single Electrical panel and Wind/Solar Installations (will only record the net of generation and production - to record generation and production separately, you will need to order the TED 5002-G) - Amazon.com

If you are comfortable opening up your breaker box and reasonably handy, its a pretty easy install. The communication between the measurement units (MTUs) and the web server unit (Gateway) is via Power Line Carrier (PLC). Put the gateway as close as you can to the breaker box and you will reduce headaches greatly.

 

[delanman]

SolarCity no longer doing HPWC installs

Just had an email from the person coordinating the HPWC shipment. Evidently Tesla is no longer recommending SolarCity for HPWC installs but will instead send you to an electrical contractor. I hit the SolarCity "request a consult" button on my dashboard long ago but never heard from anyone. The mention of SolarCity is now gone and has been replaced by the "call an electrician" notice.

I originally thought the order process was great since there was an end-to-end commitment to the customer by Elon's combined enterprise. Not so. And the process just became more complicated.

 

[gpetti]

For $200 and installation, you can measure the actual usage over time, both before and after your HPWC install. This will let you see actual numbers, and log them down to second resolution, with an easy web interface.

TED 5000-G The Energy Detective - Compatible With Single Electrical panel and Wind/Solar Installations (will only record the net of generation and production - to record generation and production separately, you will need to order the TED 5002-G) - Amazon.com

If you are comfortable opening up your breaker box and reasonably handy, its a pretty easy install. The communication between the measurement units (MTUs) and the web server unit (Gateway) is via Power Line Carrier (PLC). Put the gateway as close as you can to the breaker box and you will reduce headaches greatly.

Thanks, That sounds interesting. I'm having some basement work done and a larger size panel put in (not putting in a larger service - yet) so I could get the electrician to do this if I decided to add it. Looking at the equipment involved it reminded me that an ammeter (of the clamp on kind) would be an easy way of observing current draw if I kicked in a few devices in the house. I guess the electrician might be willing to help analyze my load in the short term but a longer term ability to monitor the load does sound attractive.