New Powerwall Advanced Options [Toggles for charging from and discharging to grid from powerwalls]

[dailo]

I didn't see a post covering this already, but looks like maybe we can charge from the grid now?

Powerwall Modes | Tesla Support

Powerwall is configured to meet your home’s specific energy needs. Use the Tesla app to monitor and manage your solar system’s performance with features and control modes such as Backup Reserve, Self-Powered and Time-Based Control.

www.tesla.com

 

[bmah]

I didn't see a post covering this already, but looks like maybe we can charge from the grid now?

Powerwall Modes | Tesla Support

Powerwall is configured to meet your home’s specific energy needs. Use the Tesla app to monitor and manage your solar system’s performance with features and control modes such as Backup Reserve, Self-Powered and Time-Based Control.

www.tesla.com

Fascinating. I have the "Grid Charging" option but not the "Permission to Export" option (although my system was PTO-ed over two years ago, and it's been exporting excess solar as expected). I haven't tried toggling that setting.

Gateway 1 running 22.9.1, iOS app 4.7.3-983.

Bruce.

 

[dailo]

Looks like it works. Will be useful for the winter!

 

[aesculus]

I didn't see a post covering this already, but looks like maybe we can charge from the grid now?

Powerwall Modes | Tesla Support

Powerwall is configured to meet your home’s specific energy needs. Use the Tesla app to monitor and manage your solar system’s performance with features and control modes such as Backup Reserve, Self-Powered and Time-Based Control.

www.tesla.com

Good find. I need to leave mine off for a few years but great that it is available to others and to future grid chargers, when our credit commitment runs out.

EDIT: Like @bmah I don't have the "Permission to Export" option.

EDIT2: It will be interesting to see how this works in Cost Savings mode. It could get real interesting when you can mix and match off peak grid charging with solar production and sending back to the grid. Conceptually you could just about send all solar back for credit if you had a good off peak rate.

Now the next step I want to see is allowing us to send solar back after we produce and store it (ie during peak after the sun goes down).

 

[dailo]

Fascinating. I have the "Grid Charging" option but not the "Permission to Export" option (although my system was PTO-ed over two years ago, and it's been exporting excess solar as expected). I haven't tried toggling that setting.

Gateway 1 running 22.9.1, iOS app 4.7.3-983.

Bruce.

I am guessing it is a PW+ only option since they can actually directly control the inverter and taper output.

 

[jjrandorin]

Fascinating. I have the "Grid Charging" option but not the "Permission to Export" option (although my system was PTO-ed over two years ago, and it's been exporting excess solar as expected). I haven't tried toggling that setting.

Gateway 1 running 22.9.1, iOS app 4.7.3-983.

Bruce.

I have the same (grid charging option but not "permission to export" option). That permission to export option seems like it would be only powerwall+, and only apply to exporting solar or not.

This should be a VERY exciting change for those who were looking for grid charging during the winter (which is likely almost everyone who has one of these systems).

========================================

(moderator note)

Thread title amended to point out the grid charging feature, which is something that should be exciting to many people. Thanks OP for bringing this to our attention!

 

[getakey]

I have the same (grid charging option but not "permission to export" option). That permission to export option seems like it would be only powerwall+, and only apply to exporting solar or not.

This should be a VERY exciting change for those who were looking for grid charging during the winter (which is likely almost everyone who has one of these systems).

I'm still on EV1-A. Even during summer, it would be better for me to charge at night during Off peak and send more of my solar to grid at Partial Peak

 

[dailo]

I'm still on EV1-A. Even during summer, it would be better for me to charge at night during Off peak and send more of my solar to grid at Partial Peak

Wish I still had the EV1-A plan, this would be really useful for that. I will have to play around with the settings, but would be nice if it would automatically charge from grid back to your reserve % during off peak hours.

 

[wwhitney]

I'm most interested in the "Energy Exports" option shown on the web page, which I do not see on my app (but I do see "Grid Charging"). The web page says "Energy Exports" can be set to "Solar," in which case during Peak times the PW only puts out enough to cover your home usage, letting all the solar instantaneously generated by exported. Or that it can be set to "Everything" which exports all the energy in your PW down to the reserve during Peak period.

The combination of "Grid Charging=Yes" and "Energy Exports=Everything" would be TOU arbitrage, which I understand is often prohibited, and definitely for NEM in CA. But to my knowledge NEM allows either "Grid Charging=Yes" with "Energy Exports=Solar," or "Grid Charging=No" with "Energy Exports=Everything." Either way all the exported energy comes from PV, the latter just uses the PW for time-shifting PV generation.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[dareed1]

This should be a VERY exciting change for those who were looking for grid charging during the winter (which is likely almost everyone who has one of these systems).

I'm on PG&E TOU-C and in winter I wouldn't expect to use grid charging, The differential in cost per kWh is approximately the same as the efficiency loss in the Powerwalls. Changing to an EV rate plan could change that but we have heat pumps, and I can't only run them at off-peak hours. I don't have enough experience or personal energy to see if an EV rate would work out for us.

I also see the grid charging feature in 4.7.1-927 on Android

 

[dailo]

I'm most interested in the "Energy Exports" option shown on the web page, which I do not see on my app (but I do see "Grid Charging"). The web page says "Energy Exports" can be set to "Solar," in which case during Peak times the PW only puts out enough to cover your home usage, letting all the solar instantaneously generated by exported. Or that it can be set to "Everything" which exports all the energy in your PW down to the reserve during Peak period.

The combination of "Grid Charging=Yes" and "Energy Exports=Everything" would be TOU arbitrage, which I understand is often prohibited, and definitely for NEM in CA. But to my knowledge NEM allows either "Grid Charging=Yes" with "Energy Exports=Solar," or "Grid Charging=No" with "Energy Exports=Everything." Either way all the exported energy comes from PV, the latter just uses the PW for time-shifting PV generation.

Cheers, Wayne

Didn't realize that it was prohibited by NEM (makes sense I guess), but that would be pretty nice to be able to dump the PWs during summer peak rates.

 

[power.saver]

The combination of "Grid Charging=Yes" and "Energy Exports=Everything" would be TOU arbitrage

But only if you changed your reserve between charging and exporting. Grid charging is only up to your reserve, and exporting is only down to your reserve. Seems there is no arbitrage without changing the reserve on a daily basis.

 

[wwhitney]

Grid charging is only up to your reserve, and exporting is only down to your reserve. Seems there is no arbitrage without changing the reserve on a daily basis.

The web page in the OP says "When set to ‘Yes,’ Powerwall will charge from the grid if there is insufficient solar available to maintain the Backup Reserve or if there is a financial benefit when in Time-Based Control mode." Which certainly sounds to me like doing TOU arbitrage if both Grid Charging and Export Everything are enabled.

Cheers, Waye

 

[h2ofun]

So, I went back to V3 to get balanced. I see this is on V4. So, with normal GW 2, does this really allow grid charging anytime?
Does one have to manually set the reserve to like 100 first? I do not want to go back to V4 until this option really works, even though it is of
no use for me now, only in the dead of winter.

 

[ptdusn]

Here in AZ, I haven't seen this option on the app yet. Though, I do see that my app updates like a week or so after the members here.

 

[KHYE]

These are nice to have, i saw both options available in my app. For the "Permission to Export", does this mean that I can set it to yes as soon as my utility approves my PTO, instead of waiting for Tesla to take me out of "self consumption" mode?

 

[jboy210]

Thanks for posting this. I can think of a few times Fall this would have come in useful.

 

[scotsmanswan]

How does one know if you “allowed” to charge from the grid?

 

[h2ofun]

I loaded another phone with version 4. I am not seeing charge from grid. Is there certain FW I need on the GW for this?

 

[GRV0928]

I saw this setting after one day updating to the latest version of the Tesla app….