I don’t think those really make much of a difference here in humid Florida where @mstgkillr and I live. Plus the minerals and such in the water can damage the coil.
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New Tesla 15.12kW Solar / 4 Powerwall order in Orlando
- Thread starter BrettS
- Start date
I don’t think those really make much of a difference here in humid Florida where @mstgkillr and I live. Plus the minerals and such in the water can damage the coil.
Mineral content is an issue, but coils with 60 degree water reduce the head pressure and compressor energy needed vs whatever the air temp is.
Guy I knew of in Michigan ran his well water through a coil in the central air instead of having A/C for lower cost.
Good to hear that some people had good Tesla response. My biggest worry is communication and response. My local installer is $7k higher installation cost. Hard to go with his very highly regarded local solar company at such a price differential. His company also offers Panasonic 25year guaranteed panels. With Enphase micro-inverters. Does Tesla offer any options for parts, e.g. inverters or panels? How good are they at designing the roof layout?
Part of how Tesla keeps costs down, and speeds up installation is that they stick to pre-designed systems. And they have those systems pre-approved by a lot of the permitting agencies so they don't have to build a big/custom application for each system.
For the most part they use Delta inverters if you aren't going to have shading where the panels are installed and they use a SolarEdge system if you are going to have shading issues. I haven't ever seen the use micro-inverters.
pdx_m3s
Active Member
I've been really impressed with my solar order thus far. My rep has always been easy to reach on the phone and via email. Very responsive and helpful. The panels Tesla uses are solid and have a 25 year all inclusive warranty. If it were me, there's no way I'd pay 70% more for an identical system.
Well, it looks like my project for today is moving this pump for my irrigation system. It was there when I bought the house, so I don’t know who installed it or what they were thinking when they did, but apparently code requires 3 feet of clearance in front of the pain electrical panel. And that pipe is literally right in front of it. The guys from Tesla were pretty concerned that I wouldn’t pass my inspection with the pump there.
They said that I could leave it and hope that the inspector was in a good mood when he came, but they thought that I was pretty likely to fail and have to move it. Originally I figured I’d just leave it and hope for the best, but as I’m thinking about it it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be too much work to move it back a bit and at least then I’m more likely to pass the inspection on the first try.
They said that I could leave it and hope that the inspector was in a good mood when he came, but they thought that I was pretty likely to fail and have to move it. Originally I figured I’d just leave it and hope for the best, but as I’m thinking about it it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be too much work to move it back a bit and at least then I’m more likely to pass the inspection on the first try.
Well, it wound up being a bit more effort than I was hoping, but I got it moved. Florida soil is pretty sandy and easy to dig in, but what I didn’t anticipate was that there were two layers of landscape fabric in that garden as well as a large number of roots. Additionally I wound up having to run new wire because the conduit and wire wasn’t long enough to reach the new location. But I did get the pump off of that unsightly cinderblock and put it on a paver instead. And it’s now nearly 3.5’ from the panels, so I should have nothing to worry about during the inspection. Of course now all I need them to do is actually schedule the inspection.
Much cleaner look too @BrettS. I was wondering what was going to happen with it. The wall looks great and since all your equipment there is gray, the GW1 really doesn't look bad there. In fact a GW2 would have looked out of place. Good luck on getting that inspection and then I assume you have a wait for the PTO like we do here in Calif.
Thanks. I’m exhausted from all the digging through roots and landscape fabric, but I think it came out pretty well and I feel more comfortable about passing the inspection now. I feel like if I had let it go more than likely it would have wound up having to move it anyway and had more delays from a failed inspection.
I agree about the gateway 1. I can see how the gateway 2 would look nice if it was installed next to the powerwalls, but in my case the gateway 1 just blends in with all the other panels.
And yeah, I am supposed to wait for PTO. However, as I mentioned above I have just been running completely off grid since Wednesday morning. I feel like as long as I’m not sending power to the grid then the utility doesn’t really have anything to complain about,
@BrettS Question for you on your usage graphs. The rhythmic pattern with the consistent spikes up to ~3kW of usage (blue graph) seen primarily at night between ~8pm and 7am, is that the HVAC unit or something else or do you even know?
Yeah, that’s my HVAC. It draws about 2.6kWh when it cycles on. You can see it cycle during the day as well, although it runs for longer during the afternoons.
Thanks for the info. I don't know how much mine will pull but being just west of you in Lutz FL (just north of Tampa) I'm afraid I might be in even worse shape, especially since I have 2 separate units, one for upstairs and one for downstairs.
Well, after 7 days and about 13 hours of being off grid I am going back on the grid for the evening. It was really overcast this morning and then we got a lot of rain this afternoon and I just didn’t get enough solar power today to get my powerwalls charged enough to make it through the night. I could probably make it until about 4 or 5AM, but I will be asleep then, so I’m just going to reconnect to the grid this evening. That way I’ll save at least some power in the powerwalls in case there is a real outage tonight.
So I was just checking on the production of my system (as I have been doing obsessively for the past week or so) and saw this:
It’s showing my 15.12kW system generating 15.3kW of power, which is pretty good if you ask me. 15.3kW was the peak number that I saw and it was bouncing around 15kW a little during that time dipping down to around 14.7kW and then back up into the low 15’s, but personally I think that number is pretty impressive.
It’s showing my 15.12kW system generating 15.3kW of power, which is pretty good if you ask me
. 15.3kW was the peak number that I saw and it was bouncing around 15kW a little during that time dipping down to around 14.7kW and then back up into the low 15’s, but personally I think that number is pretty impressive.So I was just checking on the production of my system (as I have been doing obsessively for the past week or so) and saw this:
View attachment 559668
It’s showing my 15.12kW system generating 15.3kW of power, which is pretty good if you ask me
Forgive my ignorance here, but does that mean the 15.12kW a theoretical limit and not a hardware limit?
Depends where the limit is.
Panels have a design rating. If you are in an area with more solar that the standard, or cloud edges are shining more sun, or the panels are cold, or they are new, you can get higher outputs.
The inverters will self limit to their design numbers.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but this is my understanding...
When the silicon solar cells are created they don’t all perform exactly the same way. Some will perform better and some will perform worse, but the panels are guaranteed to produce a minimum amount of power under specific conditions. It’s possible that some panels may exceed their rating by some extent.
Additionally, as mongo stated, conditions can vary quite a lot and it’s possible that the panels were getting more energy from the sun than the what was required for rating the panel.
However it’s also worth noting that the panel rating (and the system rating that is based on the panel rating) is based off of the DC power generated by the panels. There will be losses as that DC power is converted to AC in the inverter. So in the real world it’s not always common to see AC production that exceeds the system rating like that. Up until today the highest I’ve seen my AC production numbers was around 14kW, which I thought was pretty good. At least until this afternoon.
There’s another thread talking about cleaning panels and how much that affects performance. We had very heavy rain yesterday afternoon, so I suppose it’s possible that the rain helped to clean the panels and that’s helping to increase the production numbers as well.
When the silicon solar cells are created they don’t all perform exactly the same way. Some will perform better and some will perform worse, but the panels are guaranteed to produce a minimum amount of power under specific conditions. It’s possible that some panels may exceed their rating by some extent.
Additionally, as mongo stated, conditions can vary quite a lot and it’s possible that the panels were getting more energy from the sun than the what was required for rating the panel.
However it’s also worth noting that the panel rating (and the system rating that is based on the panel rating) is based off of the DC power generated by the panels. There will be losses as that DC power is converted to AC in the inverter. So in the real world it’s not always common to see AC production that exceeds the system rating like that. Up until today the highest I’ve seen my AC production numbers was around 14kW, which I thought was pretty good. At least until this afternoon.
There’s another thread talking about cleaning panels and how much that affects performance. We had very heavy rain yesterday afternoon, so I suppose it’s possible that the rain helped to clean the panels and that’s helping to increase the production numbers as well.
Interesting, I believe that is similar to how computer processors are created / graded and why some can be overclocked and some can't.
Was this more of a spike or part of a smooth curve? If a spike, was it right after the sun came out from clouds? I've seen spikes above what would be the normal curve on days where there are some clouds, right after the sun pops back out. Typically within a minute or two, output then falls back to where it should be on the daily curve.
I would say probably more of a spike, although it’s a little hard to tell because it’s been reasonably cloudy today so my entire graph is pretty spiky. I watched it for a couple of minutes and it was hanging around the 15kW range and then when I checked a little while later it was closer to 14kW, which is more what I would expect for this time of day.
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