Tesla Motors Club
Well it's been a trip. I'll link back to this from other posts that relate to the issue but wanted to start a clean thread with my experience. Long and short of it is if you're experiencing similar issues get the latest firmware (1.37.1 for me) and call Tesla to fix the frequency settings for your inverters.
I have an 8.6kw solar system (29x Enphase IQ6 microinverters, UL1741 certified) and my one Powerwall was delivered and installed in March with firmware 1.34.3. I noticed during my first grid outage test that my LED lights flickered and UPS reported wall power available but switched to battery mode due to the frequency problem. After reading this thread and contacting Tesla support it became clear that the Powerwall was using a frequency that was much too high than needed to turn off the inverters. For reference UL1741 inverters are certified to turn off immediately if the frequency exceeds 62hz ("must trip high frequency").
Well I'm happy to report that after some discussion with Tier 2 support and the upgrade to 1.37.1 my frequency issue is resolved! Doing a grid outage simulation test with the Tesla agent and I were able to see that the frequency bumped right up to 62.5hz which turned my inverters off without upsetting the LED lights or UPS. It was an on-and-off cloudy day so we waited until the Powerwall SoC dropped to 96% and then watched the frequency drop down to 60, which turned the inverters back on and began to power the home and charge the Powerwall. My understanding from my conversation with the tech is that while the updated firmware enables tweaking of the frequency settings they do have to be changed, presumably by Tesla remotely, as they're not set to the lower frequency by default.
I'll try to get more data soon but am still fighting connectivity issues due to an antenna issue with my gateway.
Powerwall 2 + UPS Connundrum - and solution
New Powerwall 2 Installation and First Simulated Grid Outage Test
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As an interesting side note: when I was poking around with the Powerwall APIs I noticed that the Gateway does know the exact make and model of my inverters. I'm not sure how it does, my best guess is that it was configured by the installer after it was placed. If the Gateway trusts that information and knows that specific inverters are compliant with UL1741 then it seems trivial to fix this generally across all installs of the same inverters...
(commands in black are Windows based, the curl tool is available here, server responses in blue, replace all variables in <>s with the applicable ones for your install)
curl -i -k -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"username\":\"customer\",\"password\":\"<password>\",\"email\":\"<email address>\",\"force_sm_off\":false}" "https://<gateway local IP>/api/login/Basic"
{"email":"<email>","firstname":"Tesla","lastname":"Energy","roles":["Home_Owner"],"token":"<token>","provider":"Basic"}
curl -i -k -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" "https://<gateway local IP>/api/solars"
[{"brand":"Enphase Energy","model":"IQ6-60-X-US (240V)","power_rating_watts":8600,"server_count":0}]
I have an 8.6kw solar system (29x Enphase IQ6 microinverters, UL1741 certified) and my one Powerwall was delivered and installed in March with firmware 1.34.3. I noticed during my first grid outage test that my LED lights flickered and UPS reported wall power available but switched to battery mode due to the frequency problem. After reading this thread and contacting Tesla support it became clear that the Powerwall was using a frequency that was much too high than needed to turn off the inverters. For reference UL1741 inverters are certified to turn off immediately if the frequency exceeds 62hz ("must trip high frequency").
Well I'm happy to report that after some discussion with Tier 2 support and the upgrade to 1.37.1 my frequency issue is resolved! Doing a grid outage simulation test with the Tesla agent and I were able to see that the frequency bumped right up to 62.5hz which turned my inverters off without upsetting the LED lights or UPS. It was an on-and-off cloudy day so we waited until the Powerwall SoC dropped to 96% and then watched the frequency drop down to 60, which turned the inverters back on and began to power the home and charge the Powerwall. My understanding from my conversation with the tech is that while the updated firmware enables tweaking of the frequency settings they do have to be changed, presumably by Tesla remotely, as they're not set to the lower frequency by default.
I'll try to get more data soon but am still fighting connectivity issues due to an antenna issue with my gateway.
Powerwall 2 + UPS Connundrum - and solution
New Powerwall 2 Installation and First Simulated Grid Outage Test
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As an interesting side note: when I was poking around with the Powerwall APIs I noticed that the Gateway does know the exact make and model of my inverters. I'm not sure how it does, my best guess is that it was configured by the installer after it was placed. If the Gateway trusts that information and knows that specific inverters are compliant with UL1741 then it seems trivial to fix this generally across all installs of the same inverters...
(commands in black are Windows based, the curl tool is available here, server responses in blue, replace all variables in <>s with the applicable ones for your install)
curl -i -k -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"username\":\"customer\",\"password\":\"<password>\",\"email\":\"<email address>\",\"force_sm_off\":false}" "https://<gateway local IP>/api/login/Basic"
{"email":"<email>","firstname":"Tesla","lastname":"Energy","roles":["Home_Owner"],"token":"<token>","provider":"Basic"}
curl -i -k -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" "https://<gateway local IP>/api/solars"
[{"brand":"Enphase Energy","model":"IQ6-60-X-US (240V)","power_rating_watts":8600,"server_count":0}]