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off grid test, app keeps alternating between off grid and grid outage?

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crackers8199

Active Member
May 31, 2015
2,104
1,131
SoCal
I took myself off grid around 9:30 this morning to do a test and see how long we can last (I actually first went off grid last night around midnight but turned it back on about an hour later because we didn't have enough battery to make it til sunrise, figured starting from scratch in the AM was a better idea).

anyway, right now the grid doesn't appear to be down (neighbors have power and no outage on SCEs website), but the app keeps flipping back and forth between off grid and grid outage every few seconds. also, the backup history is messed up...

is this some sort of known issue, or did I find a bug? you can see in the screenshot that the backup history is totally wrong: 11:56pm-12:46am last night is about right for when I used the app to go off grid, but the one minute outage from 2:34pm-2:35pm today makes no sense (and also doesn't reflect me taking us off grid around 9:30 this morning).

edit: screen record of the app switching between off grid and grid outage every few seconds...

 

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to add to the mystery, it put me back on grid overnight even though I had enough battery left to cover me...was at 23% when it put me back on grid, and when the sun came up and started charging the battery I was at 14% which was the lowest I got. my reserve is 10%, if that matters...

I did have a surge to 6.6kw at the time where it went back on grid...would that have had something to do with it? I guess that would make sense since 23% would only be around 6kwh, but I guess I don't understand the difference between kw and kwh as it relates to the battery and how much power it can provide... (this also doesn't answer what is causing my issue with the off grid / grid outage flipping back and forth)
 
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I personally dont consider the "off grid in the app" setting a true off grid test. If you are testing you should go throw your main breaker as if there was a power outage.

I am fairly sure you are using that setting in the app, because if you actually threw the physical breaker there would be no way for it to "put you back on grid".

Try putting yourself on grid in the app, and making sure you are on grid there, then go throw the physical breaker. Even better if the solar is covering your home load and the battery is not full when you do it, because if those are the cases, you most likely wont experience any power blip at all.
 
I am fairly sure you are using that setting in the app, because if you actually threw the physical breaker there would be no way for it to "put you back on grid".

you are correct, sir. wanted to be able to test overnight and see where we get to without having to worry about potentially having the battery run dry...but I don't understand why it put me back on grid when it did. I would have thought at 23% I still had enough to cover the surges where the AC kicked on, and I never got down below 14% after that.

the powerwall covered a second spike to 6.6kwh about 30 mins after without drawing from the grid, so that seems to support my hypothesis...
 
I did have a surge to 6.6kw at the time where it went back on grid...would that have had something to do with it? I guess that would make sense since 23% would only be around 6kwh, but I guess I don't understand the difference between kw and kwh as it relates to the battery and how much power it can provide...
kWh is energy, kW is power. With 6kWh energy in your battery, you could draw 6kW power for 1 hour, or 1kW power for 6 hours, or 0.5kW power for 12 hours...

The off-grid mode will terminate if your power draw exceeds 5kW x # of powerwalls. Since you have 2, that would be 10kW. Is that 6.6kW load a pump or AC with a large inrush? It's possible it briefly used more than 10kW when starting which ended off-grid mode.

While off-grid, each Powerwall can provide up to 5 kW of continuous power. You can use Go Off-Grid to identify the kinds of heavy loads your Powerwall system can support. When you've taken your home off-grid, and you exceed your system's capabilities, Powerwall will automatically reconnect to the grid to support these loads.
 
kWh is energy, kW is power. With 6kWh energy in your battery, you could draw 6kW power for 1 hour, or 1kW power for 6 hours, or 0.5kW power for 12 hours...

The off-grid mode will terminate if your power draw exceeds 5kW x # of powerwalls. Since you have 2, that would be 10kW. Is that 6.6kW load a pump or AC with a large inrush? It's possible it briefly used more than 10kW when starting which ended off-grid mode.

While off-grid, each Powerwall can provide up to 5 kW of continuous power. You can use Go Off-Grid to identify the kinds of heavy loads your Powerwall system can support. When you've taken your home off-grid, and you exceed your system's capabilities, Powerwall will automatically reconnect to the grid to support these loads.

that would make sense. my pool pump runs on high from 5am-6am, and it would have been running at the same time the AC kicked on.

does this mean I would have been ok had this spike happened while in full sun (i.e. I should change the pool pump schedule to run mid day rather than early AM)?
 
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to answer my own question, seems the answer is yes. I can run AC and pool pump on high at the same time when in full sun. will adjust my pump schedule accordingly.

Screenshot_20220507-121847_Tesla.jpg


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this still doesn't answer the question as to what was going on with the off grid / grid outage weirdness yesterday, though...