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PG&E rolling blackouts during heatwave (Aug 14 2020 —> ?)

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We've been on Storm Watch over the weekend but now are going to be heading out of town tomorrow for a week. How can I get off of SW so that "Cost Savings" routines are active? When I make the changes now, nothing changes.
That's weird. I turned my Storm Watch on this morning at 8:30am and it started charging within a few minutes. I turned it off about 2.5 hours later and it stopped within no more than 15 minutes.
 
A friend of mine just bought a new house, very happy, packing all week. Then yesterday they are at the new house with the movers putting boxes in the correct rooms and he notices that his PowerWall is on StormWatch for like the first time ever. Suddenly it goes to charging. Oh, well, he thinks, I'll look at it later. That night he notices that the PowerWall has completed charging to 100% from expensive PG&E which he will never get back because he is trying to sell that house now.

Then of course rolling blackouts hit his new house. He let me know when he texted me last night that he had been in the dark for 90 minutes.

I live in Alameda and we NEVER worry about power in the 25 years I have lived here. I would never need a PowerWall here. We have our own power company and when there are rolling blackouts they bring in diesel generators. When PG&E has PSPS issues Alameda is unaffected.

That said, our substation was hit by lightning this morning and they will be bringing down half the island to do repairs. They always say this rare thing that could happen is as rare as you getting struck by lightning, well well well... My solar is completely useless w/o power from the grid.
 
I'm in SCE territory but decided to switch my reserve setting to 95% last Friday. Any reason not to do this as soon as rolling blackouts start happening statewide? Have plenty of bill credit to use so don't really have cost saving concerns at the moment.
Doesn't seem like a bad idea. Though letting your Powerwall discharge some during peak hours will help prevent rolling blackouts, so I would probably opt to set a lower threshold that's enough to get you through the night in case of power outage.

It's times like these where Tesla Autobidder could make some significant contributions to grid stability by allowing grid exports from Powerwalls during events like these. Powerwall owners would benefit by getting paid extra to export during times like these.
 
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During a time like now when StormWatch is active and for the period that it remains active, what would be the difference between setting the reserve to 100% or turning StormWatch on? I understand the automation advantage from leaving StormWatch on in the long run. I’m just wondering if there are distribution differences between the two when either one is active.
 
2 hrs ago California ISO has issued a standing Flex Alert From 3 to 10pm each day from today thru Wednesday.

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Would have nice to have 2 PW2 to let you run your home off battery for the whole period. With enough homes doing this in your neighborhood, power may never go out as PG&E would not be reducing any load by blacking out your neighborhood.
 
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Ive got a 'few' Model S modules in parallel with one of Jack Rickard's 240v inverters being charged by about 2.5kW of repurposed solar panels combined with another 1.5kW of solar panels all with 240VAC micro grid tied inverters. I charge my cars mostly at work.

Depending on how hard I run the A/C I run about every other day off grid while still testing the system. I'd say this could be replicated for $5-7k and anyone with basic electronics knowledge could handle.

Of course it's never going to have the fit/finish and connectivity of the neighbors Powerwall but it surpasses their capacity and I can just add modules to up my storage if I want to.
 
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This PG&E rolling black out help push me to order Tesla solar + powerwalls today. Not sure if I really want powerwalls because they're so expensive and sort of peace of mind thing.

Just so you're aware...

If you have solar but no Powerwalls and the grid goes down, your solar will be useless. Typical inverters shut down as a safety measure if there's a grid outage, that way there's no chance of them trying to backfeed power to the grid while utility personnel are trying to make repairs. On the other hand, if you have both solar and Powerwalls, your solar inverter will keep running during a grid outage (for the most part...there are a few edge cases that aren't really important at this level of discussion), and you can keep your house powered for quite awhile during an extended outage.

Bruce.
 
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Just so you're aware...

If you have solar but no Powerwalls and the grid goes down, your solar will be useless. Typical inverters shut down as a safety measure if there's a grid outage, that way there's no chance of them trying to backfeed power to the grid while utility personnel are trying to make repairs. On the other hand, if you have both solar and Powerwalls, your solar inverter will keep running during a grid outage (for the most part...there are a few edge cases that aren't really important at this level of discussion), and you can keep your house powered for quite awhile during an extended outage.

Bruce.

Good point, make sure to get the solar + PW2 installed in "Island mode".
 
Just so you're aware...

If you have solar but no Powerwalls and the grid goes down, your solar will be useless. Typical inverters shut down as a safety measure if there's a grid outage, that way there's no chance of them trying to backfeed power to the grid while utility personnel are trying to make repairs. On the other hand, if you have both solar and Powerwalls, your solar inverter will keep running during a grid outage (for the most part...there are a few edge cases that aren't really important at this level of discussion), and you can keep your house powered for quite awhile during an extended outage.

Bruce.
Thanks, I did know that about the grid and my solar being useless. Just the cost side holding me back, if it's just solar, i'd be all over it already. With climate change and these black outs and fires, the black outs would be an annual thing. Reminds me from the 1999s-2000s when PG&E did the same black outs in SF during middle of the day.
 
I'm in SCE territory but decided to switch my reserve setting to 95% last Friday. Any reason not to do this as soon as rolling blackouts start happening statewide? Have plenty of bill credit to use so don't really have cost saving concerns at the moment.

Im in SCE territory and I did something similar. I feel it covers two things.. One, my powerwalls are basically full, in case I get hit with rolling blackouts or some other issue due to the heat, and two that also means I am exporting much of my solar which theoretically "helps" with power for my neighbors.

I have plenty of credit this year as well... like $375 worth so far on my last bill. Lot less miles on my model 3 this year too, due to covid.
 
I have a question regarding the powerwalls. Yesterday our 150 amp breaker failed for our entire house sub panel. We don't have PTO yet so the (3) Powerwalls were powered off when power went out. I tried turning them on, but they would not power up. Is this normal behavior? Once an electrician replaced the 150 amp breaker and power was restored I could turn them on.