New San Diego Solar + PW - How long to get “Permission to Operate”

[ybbor]

I'm having my new Solar system plus two PowerWall2's installed next Friday in San Diego.

I'm wondering what the status of the system will be once the install is complete? Will the solar be active and charging the batteries? Will the system do nothing until I get “Permission to Operate” from my power company SDG&E? Any Idea how long it typically takes to get “Permission to Operate”?

Thanks!
-Robby

 

[dotbombjoe]

Same setup for me in Orange county...installed Dec 17. Everything was active and working immediately. Permission to operate for PV and batteries came separately. Took several months, not sure why. I can't remember if I had to stay in self-consumption mode or anything though but my billing didn't change until permission to operate -- that is, my usage immediately went down but the annual cycle w/true up didn't start until the permission to operate.

My installers said sometimes someone may shut it off (inspector? electric company staff? I dunno) but I was told if that happened, just turn it back on after they leave.

At least that's how I remember it! It was definitely on and working from the day it was installed though.

 

[Maximapolak]

Same setup for me in Orange county...installed Dec 17. Everything was active and working immediately. Permission to operate for PV and batteries came separately. Took several months, not sure why. I can't remember if I had to stay in self-consumption mode or anything though but my billing didn't change until permission to operate -- that is, my usage immediately went down but the annual cycle w/true up didn't start until the permission to operate.

My installers said sometimes someone may shut it off (inspector? electric company staff? I dunno) but I was told if that happened, just turn it back on after they leave.

At least that's how I remember it! It was definitely on and working from the day it was installed though.

I thought you can’t turn it on before getting the permission to operate.

 

[Az_Rael]

Same setup for me in Orange county...installed Dec 17. Everything was active and working immediately. Permission to operate for PV and batteries came separately. Took several months, not sure why. I can't remember if I had to stay in self-consumption mode or anything though but my billing didn't change until permission to operate -- that is, my usage immediately went down but the annual cycle w/true up didn't start until the permission to operate.

My installers said sometimes someone may shut it off (inspector? electric company staff? I dunno) but I was told if that happened, just turn it back on after they leave.

At least that's how I remember it! It was definitely on and working from the day it was installed though.

Tesla told me it was a big fine from my utility (SCE) if I got caught running the system prior to PTO. Probably a low risk of that, unless you get singled out to be made an example of. But there is also a risk that any power you back feed into the grid will be charged to your account instead of credited if your meter hasn’t been provisioned for net metering yet. So you could unintentionally get a bigger bill by running the system before your PTO.

Took 2 months to get mine (mostly due to Tesla incompetence), system sat powered off in my garage the entire time.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Tesla told me it was a big fine from my utility (SCE) if I got caught running the system prior to PTO. Probably a low risk of that, unless you get singled out to be made an example of. But there is also a risk that any power you back feed into the grid will be charged to your account instead of credited if your meter hasn’t been provisioned for net metering yet. So you could unintentionally get a bigger bill by running the system before your PTO.

Took 2 months to get mine (mostly due to Tesla incompetence), system sat powered off in my garage the entire time.

In our case, we didn't have a meter for the 7 weeks, 6 days, 23 hours and 30 minutes that we were waiting for PTO...so no worry about being charged for sending power back to the grid!

 

[dotbombjoe]

Yeah, I was surprised by the situation because I expected to be dormant until permission to operate. But the installers said they leave it on...when the inspector comes, sometimes they'll turn it off. Said he hadn't experienced any negative outcomes re: having it on. But I'm no expert and not giving advice...just saying what happened in my circumstances.

I'm pretty sure I had it in self-consumption mode so wasn't feeding anything back to grid. I'm on SDGE fwiw...maybe I got lucky, maybe SDGE is more lax than others, I dunno. Also, I just confirmed, it took nearly 4 months to get permission to operate. I was not happy with Tesla's handling of the whole process. Took 8 months for them to install after I signed the contract. They nearly blew up my SGIP rebate stuff because they submitted incomplete/inaccurate forms so many times...but it all panned out in the end.