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New Tesla 15.12kW Solar / 4 Powerwall order in Orlando
- Thread starter BrettS
- Start date
BenBethel
Member
Wow that's a lot of stuff attached to the house... could someone have built a small block wall and attached then built a surround to screen that? Or punch through and put the conduit inside and boxed it in? Great to see more solar in the world, congrats!
I don't think I've ever heard of PG&E out here requiring insurance on installations. Interesting. Not surprised about increased fees (meter or what have you).
Speaking of insurance, as for any new tile roof or solar panel array and/or PW install, since it is a hefty improvement to your house, we should all contact our insurance company to have our policy noted and adjusted for it. Hadn't really thought of it until this post.
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In my case the bushes hide it pretty well and with the conduit painted to match the house it’s not really very visible from the street. I’m sure someone could put a little wall or something around it, as long as it met code (The electricians that installed my system mentioned that nothing could be less than 3 feet in front of the electrical panel to meet code in this area.)
But I don’t know that Tesla would do extra work like that... you might need to hire someone else to do it, but I’m sure if it was important to you (and your were willing to pay for it) that you could do something to hide the extra equipment better.
It's definitely something to do, especially for the solar roof. My insurance was fine with it, but since it is a newer roofing material, it is worth making sure that there is no surprise issue with a future claim because the roofing was not acceptable. So the only change was to ensure that I was covered for a full re-build with a more expensive roof + powerwall.
The powerwalls are up to 96%. Guess I’ll see what happens with the power frequency soon.
Interesting thread and congrats on the system. I had mine installed/activated by December 2019, so still qualified for the 30% tax benefit. One aspect that I am not sure everyone is aware is the lack of transparency when it comes to financing systems like this. What it boils down to is, that if a sales pitch sounds too good to be true (as in, "you'll get it financed for only 2.9%"), then it's most likely not accurate. I had to haggle quite a bit with the sales person at Urban Solar in Broward County/FL to finally get the transparency I wanted - turns out, the overall price tag included a hefty surcharge that went directly to the financing company, who on top of that had the audacity to offer me another 2.9% interest on the suggested term of the loan. In the end, I decided to purchase the system outright. If you can, purchase it, otherwise be at a minimum aware of all the facts and details that come with the various financing options, and don't feel uncomfortable pushing for the details. Lastly, I find it disappointing to say the least that utility companies in Florida hammer larger scale systems with an additional requirement for insurance coverage. Makes no sense, and only serves the utility companies to protect their source of income. You would think that in this day and age, they had an interest that as many individuals as possible go solar without all the red tape and bureaucracy...
Below is my system - there are an additional 13 panels on North side of house, and connected to 2 Powerwalls - so far, great output and results!
Below is my system - there are an additional 13 panels on North side of house, and connected to 2 Powerwalls - so far, great output and results!
LOL, well, the cutoff happened sooner than I expected and I missed it. I’ve been checking the app periodically and I saw the powerwalls at 98% and the solar was turned off. I went to find my kill-a-watt and I couldn’t find it for a while. And by the time I found it and plugged it in it was reading exactly 60hz. I checked the app again and the powerwalls were down to 97% and the solar was back on. But now that I have the kill-a-watt ready I’ll be able to catch it next time.
The price of Tesla panels went down 30% last Friday, did they adjusted how much you pay? The reason I’m asking because They did not with my order luckily I was able to cancel Then reorder for a much lower price and more kWh.
From reports on here they are adjusting prices on those orders not installed at the time of the price adjustment, which I think is great. You might have to call and request, not sure. There is a thread on here that discusses this. We are still waiting to be scheduled and will ask when we get the call or email. I’m sure we are getting the 315 panels we signed up for, especially given the larger size of the newer 340s and us not having extra roof footage to play with. At this point hoping the increase in covid our county is experiencing doesn’t shut down the install teams again. Just missed getting our solar installed in March. Our health person, Sarah Cody, said yesterday’s 122 cases were mainly from construction workers. We haven’t had hair salons open yet and our county is super cautious in moving further into Phase 2. Just looked at today’s dashboard and new - 125 cases.
Glad no deaths, and hospitaliations at 64. Question will be how the new cases pan out. Fingers crossed. If we have to wait longer, I’m sure the Gateway 2s will be in stock, and when we placed our order in Jan/Feb we specifically asked for it if available at our time of install and it was noted in their records. Both the Gateway and PWs will go inside our garage so would like them to match. If outside with other “gray” boxes not so much a concern.
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Interesting info, thank you.
My install starts 1 July 20 (Ocala, Fl) for a 15.12kw system w/ 4 powerwalls. New Pricing and config came out two days ago from Tesla, with increased solar panel output (340w vs current 315w). I requested the new panels, but was told too late unless I cancel and start over (initial request was end of April). But I will get a "rebate" ... whatever that will come too - they didn't say. Original price was $57k cash (without incentives). Will be interesting to see what they offer me now. I would take before and after pics, but I just moved in and the place is a mess (15 projects completed, 15 to go after 2 months!!). My intent is to have the 4 powerwalls, inverter etc all go in the 3 car garage (I think I have room). Planning on whole house on back up (last month usage was 3,800 kwh). I'm not an expert at solar et el, so if anyone has suggestions or recommendations - I would appreciate it! House is ranch style (5,400 sq ft) w/ additional 1,800 sq ft screen in Lanai. Half the panels on right side, other half on the back side (nothing in front or left side) - will upload pics shortly.
My install starts 1 July 20 (Ocala, Fl) for a 15.12kw system w/ 4 powerwalls. New Pricing and config came out two days ago from Tesla, with increased solar panel output (340w vs current 315w). I requested the new panels, but was told too late unless I cancel and start over (initial request was end of April). But I will get a "rebate" ... whatever that will come too - they didn't say. Original price was $57k cash (without incentives). Will be interesting to see what they offer me now. I would take before and after pics, but I just moved in and the place is a mess (15 projects completed, 15 to go after 2 months!!). My intent is to have the 4 powerwalls, inverter etc all go in the 3 car garage (I think I have room). Planning on whole house on back up (last month usage was 3,800 kwh). I'm not an expert at solar et el, so if anyone has suggestions or recommendations - I would appreciate it! House is ranch style (5,400 sq ft) w/ additional 1,800 sq ft screen in Lanai. Half the panels on right side, other half on the back side (nothing in front or left side) - will upload pics shortly.
So I had a bit more time to play around with the frequency. It looks like as the powerwalls approach a full charge it will start slowly increasing the frequency until the inverters shut off. In my case when the powerwalls had been at 98% for a little while it would bump the frequency up to about 60.2 or 60.3 (my kill-a-watt kept fluctuating between the two) and that was enough to shut off the inverters. The house would run on the powerwalls until they got down to 97%, then the frequency would drop back down to 60. Obviously nothing in my house had issues with the 60.2 or 60.3 frequency.
So it looked like the powerwalls had to be charged to 100% for the max frequency adjustment, so I went ahead and connected myself back to the grid. My powerwalls were in backup mode, so it ran the house on the grid and put all the solar into the powerwalls. For some reason it only charged the powerwalls to 99%, then they stopped charging and it started sending excess solar back to the grid, which I didn’t want to do, so I went back off grid again. I’m not sure if they would have gotten up to 100% eventually or not. But in any case, as soon as I went off grid the inverters stopped and the frequency was up to 62.3. I certainly couldn’t check everything, but I checked some of my lights as well as my UPS, my microwave and my heat pump and nothing seemed to have a problem with the 62.3 frequency. As the powerwalls drained the frequency slowly lowered until it got back to 60 when the powerwalls were at 97%.
So, after all that, it seems like the 62.5 frequency that they set me at will work fine for me.
So it looked like the powerwalls had to be charged to 100% for the max frequency adjustment, so I went ahead and connected myself back to the grid. My powerwalls were in backup mode, so it ran the house on the grid and put all the solar into the powerwalls. For some reason it only charged the powerwalls to 99%, then they stopped charging and it started sending excess solar back to the grid, which I didn’t want to do, so I went back off grid again. I’m not sure if they would have gotten up to 100% eventually or not. But in any case, as soon as I went off grid the inverters stopped and the frequency was up to 62.3. I certainly couldn’t check everything, but I checked some of my lights as well as my UPS, my microwave and my heat pump and nothing seemed to have a problem with the 62.3 frequency. As the powerwalls drained the frequency slowly lowered until it got back to 60 when the powerwalls were at 97%.
So, after all that, it seems like the 62.5 frequency that they set me at will work fine for me.
Looks great, and that’s the same system that I had installed. You might want to start your own thread, so you can post updates to your project as time goes on like I did with this thread.
Good luck with your install
So my internet connection had problems over the weekend and they wound up replacing the cable between the pole and my house. They just ran the cable along the ground initially and then they sent someone out today to bury it. After the solar work was done the box for the cable service entry box was looking pretty awful compared to all the shiny new boxes:
You can see it under the new electrical boxes in the picture above, but it had definitely seen better days:
I gave the guy who came to bury the cable a few bottles of Gatorade and asked nicely if he had a new box to replace that one with. He was kind enough to replace it and now all the boxes on the side of my house are looking nice:
You can see it under the new electrical boxes in the picture above, but it had definitely seen better days:
I gave the guy who came to bury the cable a few bottles of Gatorade and asked nicely if he had a new box to replace that one with. He was kind enough to replace it and now all the boxes on the side of my house are looking nice:
Anecdotally my Powerwalls never fill to 100% and are usually somewhere between 97-99% depending on the time of day.
Curious when you did you off grid simulation: how much was your home consuming in kw?
I’ve been off grid all day so it’s been all over, but if you mean when I tested the frequency I was consuming about 4.5kW
Nice house and looks like you have some good roof space to run panels on. Your house is somewhat like ours in that the exterior walls look pretty cut up by doors and windows and finding a good place for something as large as multiple PWs is challenging. We are opting to go inside one of our garages as well (no place outdoors close to the main panel, more favorable interior garage temps, and we actually have one unused wall that's around 90 inches in length that we'll be able to floor mount a double and a single PW. Fortunately it's also the garage wall with a deeper recess from the garage door opening). I'll be checking in on your thread if you do updates.
So I've found with my testing the Powerwall sets frequency when off grid as a function of battery charge and load. 4.5kW a fair bit higher than I tested so I'm wondering if that lowered your observed frequency at high battery charge. As an example at 95.4% charge and 1.3kW load my frequency was 61.9hz. When I increased the load to 3.1kW at the same charge level frequency dropped to 61.5hz and then returned to 61.9hz when the load returned to 1.3kW.
Also possible by your observation that Tesla has tweaked the set points for when the frequency starts dropping to something more reasonable than 95% or that multiple Powerwalls plays a factor. My test was (holy crap) a year ago, perhaps I'll have to make it an annual tradition and run it again.
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