Possible CT Issue?

[fischman]

Hey all, had final inspection and received PTO. Looking at my app, something doesn't seem right. It appears the Solar production and the amount (Likely) being sent to the grid is being added up as my total house usage.

For example the Monitor shows.

Solar: 7.3 kW being sent to house
Grid: 6.1 kW being sent to house
Home: 13.4 kW being consumed

However, looking over my past months tracking from the power company, I rarely go over 1.6-1.8 kW usage at any 15 minute interval and have used an average of 30kWh per day (average of 1.25 kW per hour).

I doubt my house is consuming 13.4 kW at the moment as that would add up to a huge number over the day. Especially considering we have very little running (no lights, middle of a sunny day, no A/C, etc)

Based on my normal usage it looks like it should be:

Solar 7.3 kW generated
Grid: 6.1 kW sent to Grid (not to house)
Home: 1.2 kW being consumed

Does this sound right? Or am I off somewhere.

Thanks!

 

[getakey]

I agree with you and given the number of CTs reported to be installed wrong on this forum, odds are it is the CTs

 

[h2ofun]

I agree with you and given the number of CTs reported to be installed wrong on this forum, odds are it is the CTs

If backwards, easy for the CT to be flip via sw.

 

[getakey]

If backwards, easy for the CT to be flip via sw.

I haven't seen anyone post that solution.

 

[h2ofun]

I haven't seen anyone post that solution.

It is in the install menu. What Tesla would do on their end to the GW if they think it is flipped.

 

[fischman]

Called tesla, they couldn't see the issue at the level I spoke to. She said she would escalate and it could be a week or so for an answer. We'll see how this goes.

 

[scottjoh]

Hey all, had final inspection and received PTO. Looking at my app, something doesn't seem right. It appears the Solar production and the amount (Likely) being sent to the grid is being added up as my total house usage.

For example the Monitor shows.

Solar: 7.3 kW being sent to house
Grid: 6.1 kW being sent to house
Home: 13.4 kW being consumed
...
...
Does this sound right? Or am I off somewhere.

Thanks!

That is exactly what I was experiencing, I figured it was a bug in the app and that it would be corrected in the next app update. Well it didn’t get fixed, so I went looking for the source of the problem. That led me to the Powerblaster (Neurio) that they installed in my electrical breaker panel. looking for installation guide for the Powerblaster was a waste of time, but, searching for the Neurio gave me the Kickstarter page for the Neurio and there I found an installation guide and links to videos. Basically the Neurio/Poweblaster is going to sense all the electricity flowing from and to the house by using current transformers (aka CTs) around the two phase wires from the meter to the breaker bus bars. At least that’s what they show in the installation guide. They show a big panel that is extremely easy to install the CTs around these wires. My panel is really really tight and there is no physical way to get a CT around the bus bars from the meter to the breakers. So what the installers did was put a splitter on the Powerblaster CT input and use two CTs per phase for four CTs total. I looked closely at exactly what wires were going through each CT and basically found that two CTs were used for all wires leaving the panel out the top and two CTs for most of the wires leaving the panel out the bottom. Notice I said most! They left out a few. One was a smallish wire that did not go through any CT which I added to the CT with other wires of the same phase. Another wire was big-A$$ wire for one phase of my AC. I ran that one through the CT with other wires of the same phase. Lastly were the two wires from the SolarEdge inverter! Neither phase wire for the solar system went through a CT. Okay... maybe they wanted it this way.

The Solar Energy generated by the solar system is reported by the inverter, not by the Poweblaster/Neurio. Then the app either gets the Home Usage power (everything except Solar Energy) from the Powerblaster and subtracts the Solar Energy to get a From Grid number OR the app gets From Grid power from the Powerblaster and adds Solar Energy to get Home Usage. Remember that From Grid power can be positive or negative depending on if the house is pulling from the grid (+) or pushing back to the grid (-). I thought about it for a while and determined that the app is doing the later (which the Neurio installation guide backs up) and the solar system inverter wires must go through the CTs to properly determine the From (and To) Grid energy. Sure enough, when I added the inverters wires through the appropriate phase CTs and checked the app it was reporting what I expected. Now the power draw on my electrically panel meter matches what I see in the Tesla App and the three circle and graphs look like I expect.

I hope that helps you. Be very careful when poking around your electrically panel. You do not need to disconnect a wire and feed it through the CT and screw it back down to the breaker. The square CTs have a side that slide off so wires can be added and removed and then slide the piece back on. Round CTs are spring loaded and can be opened be squeezing the tabs and close automatically when released.

 

[MCNE]

Hey all, had final inspection and received PTO. Looking at my app, something doesn't seem right. It appears the Solar production and the amount (Likely) being sent to the grid is being added up as my total house usage.

For example the Monitor shows.

Solar: 7.3 kW being sent to house
Grid: 6.1 kW being sent to house
Home: 13.4 kW being consumed

However, looking over my past months tracking from the power company, I rarely go over 1.6-1.8 kW usage at any 15 minute interval and have used an average of 30kWh per day (average of 1.25 kW per hour).

I doubt my house is consuming 13.4 kW at the moment as that would add up to a huge number over the day. Especially considering we have very little running (no lights, middle of a sunny day, no A/C, etc)

Based on my normal usage it looks like it should be:

Solar 7.3 kW generated
Grid: 6.1 kW sent to Grid (not to house)
Home: 1.2 kW being consumed

Does this sound right? Or am I off somewhere.

Thanks!

I have the same problem but initially found the Current Transformers (Neurio) were not connected properly. Still, I have some funky reporting where my home and grid data points are reversed. Also for some reason it doesn't always register the electricity I'm using in the home like the A/C. Totally unusable and nothing yet from Tesla. Did you get this resolved?

 

[fischman]

I have the same problem but initially found the Current Transformers (Neurio) were not connected properly. Still, I have some funky reporting where my home and grid data points are reversed. Also for some reason it doesn't always register the electricity I'm using in the home like the A/C. Totally unusable and nothing yet from Tesla. Did you get this resolved?

View attachment 653850

So, yes and no. After pestering them for weeks, they sent a tech out who apparently did some other work on the inverters. When he asked me if the problem was fixed, I pulled out the app and showed him and he's was like "they never told me that was the issue, I was just sent to fix a problem with the inverter." So he went to the breaker box and messed with the CT. He got the Grid Power reversed correctly so know it shows I'm sending power to the grid when generating excess solar and receiving from the grid when not generating solar. However, now my house usage is all messed up. it tracks exactly with my solar generation. So as I generate more solar, my house usage goes up and it still shows I'm not sending everything to the grid that I actually am. I think somehow they may only show what's being sent by one of my two inverters which is why as my solar generation goes up it shows the house usage go up equally/substantially.

I've called Tesla several more times and they refuse to admit there's a problem and won't send anyone out to look at it again. They say they only gaurantee the solar generation is accurate but not the home usage/Grid usage. It's very frustrating to say the least. I may poke around based on ScottJoh's post above.

 

[MCNE]

So, yes and no. After pestering them for weeks, they sent a tech out who apparently did some other work on the inverters. When he asked me if the problem was fixed, I pulled out the app and showed him and he's was like "they never told me that was the issue, I was just sent to fix a problem with the inverter." So he went to the breaker box and messed with the CT. He got the Grid Power reversed correctly so know it shows I'm sending power to the grid when generating excess solar and receiving from the grid when not generating solar. However, now my house usage is all messed up. it tracks exactly with my solar generation. So as I generate more solar, my house usage goes up and it still shows I'm not sending everything to the grid that I actually am. I think somehow they may only show what's being sent by one of my two inverters which is why as my solar generation goes up it shows the house usage go up equally/substantially.

I've called Tesla several more times and they refuse to admit there's a problem and won't send anyone out to look at it again. They say they only gaurantee the solar generation is accurate but not the home usage/Grid usage. It's very frustrating to say the least. I may poke around based on ScottJoh's post above.

Yeah this is really close to what I have now. I started another thread because my physical setup issues are no longer a problem. There’s something wrong with their Tesla based Neurio device.
Neurio performance

 

[Rmerrem]

Hey all, had final inspection and received PTO. Looking at my app, something doesn't seem right. It appears the Solar production and the amount (Likely) being sent to the grid is being added up as my total house usage.

For example the Monitor shows.

Solar: 7.3 kW being sent to house
Grid: 6.1 kW being sent to house
Home: 13.4 kW being consumed

However, looking over my past months tracking from the power company, I rarely go over 1.6-1.8 kW usage at any 15 minute interval and have used an average of 30kWh per day (average of 1.25 kW per hour).

I doubt my house is consuming 13.4 kW at the moment as that would add up to a huge number over the day. Especially considering we have very little running (no lights, middle of a sunny day, no A/C, etc)

Based on my normal usage it looks like it should be:

Solar 7.3 kW generated
Grid: 6.1 kW sent to Grid (not to house)
Home: 1.2 kW being consumed

Does this sound right? Or am I off somewhere.

Thanks!

I had the same issue and swapped the 1 and 2 connectors on the Neurio. Now the power flow is correct.

 

[bhzmark]

For about 9 months the data reported on the app has looked good and accurate, but in the last few weeks there is an occasional problem where some days the data looks fine, but some days it looked like the CTs aren't reporting any power consumption through the panel and the app data is only showing solar production to the extent that it is fed back to the grid, or it shows a small amount of grid usage with zero solar production.

I submitted an app service order, and then also called Tesla and after talking to someone who was barely intelligible I emailed screen shots of the problem but have low confidence of any quick fix.

When this happened a couple weeks ago, I followed the troubleshooting and just basically reboot everything but the problem came back. I'm guessing there is a problem with the CTs, but it is weird that it worked fine and now is intermittent.

Is there anything further to do or check?

I have the older Solaredge inverters that were being used for mid 2020 installs. I never got an account there because the app seemed to work so well and production seemed fine, but now at the height of production I would like to confirm that things are working well. Where is the best current instructions on getting the solar edge account and data set up?

Any other ideas?

 

[MCNE]

For about 9 months the data reported on the app has looked good and accurate, but in the last few weeks there is an occasional problem where some days the data looks fine, but some days it looked like the CTs aren't reporting any power consumption through the panel and the app data is only showing solar production to the extent that it is fed back to the grid, or it shows a small amount of grid usage with zero solar production.

I submitted an app service order, and then also called Tesla and after talking to someone who was barely intelligible I emailed screen shots of the problem but have low confidence of any quick fix.

When this happened a couple weeks ago, I followed the troubleshooting and just basically reboot everything but the problem came back. I'm guessing there is a problem with the CTs, but it is weird that it worked fine and now is intermittent.

Is there anything further to do or check?

I have the older Solaredge inverters that were being used for mid 2020 installs. I never got an account there because the app seemed to work so well and production seemed fine, but now at the height of production I would like to confirm that things are working well. Where is the best current instructions on getting the solar edge account and data set up?

Any other ideas?

Maybe the Neurio/Blaster is now defective or going bad. Not sure if Tesla can check them remotely or not.

 

[rekoh]

Any updates on resolution of this issue?

 

[jjrandorin]

Any updates on resolution of this issue?

It would be helpful if you describe why you are bumping these threads on CT issues without any other notes.

 

[rekoh]

Hey all, had final inspection and received PTO. Looking at my app, something doesn't seem right. It appears the Solar production and the amount (Likely) being sent to the grid is being added up as my total house usage.

For example the Monitor shows.

Solar: 7.3 kW being sent to house
Grid: 6.1 kW being sent to house
Home: 13.4 kW being consumed

However, looking over my past months tracking from the power company, I rarely go over 1.6-1.8 kW usage at any 15 minute interval and have used an average of 30kWh per day (average of 1.25 kW per hour).

I doubt my house is consuming 13.4 kW at the moment as that would add up to a huge number over the day. Especially considering we have very little running (no lights, middle of a sunny day, no A/C, etc)

Based on my normal usage it looks like it should be:

Solar 7.3 kW generated
Grid: 6.1 kW sent to Grid (not to house)
Home: 1.2 kW being consumed

Does this sound right? Or am I off somewhere.

Thanks!

I have exactly the same issue.. solar plus grid is what my house is stating it needs. If solar is 3kwh. House actually need 1 kWh (that shows coming from grid), home says it needs 4kwh. Solar never charges the battery.

 

[ptdusn]

Along these lines, the Sunrun tech was here the other day and worked with the Tesla Technical support people and determined that the CT's in the Gateway2 were defective, (when PWs charged to 100% and PV power was above 5kW, the House metering would go into "Load Meter Fault" and show house as 0kW usage).

 

[rekoh]

 

[rekoh]

Here is another screenshot…. House is using 2.6 actual…. Solar is producing 4.0 actual. What “should be happening is Solar at 4… 2.6to house and 1.4 to powerwall.. instead it shows Solar + house house demand (shown in the grid and adds them together for the home. Tesla thinks the main line wires coming in may be reversed.

 

[BGbreeder]

@rekoh Have you called customer service? I believe that this sort of CT redefinition can be done online, and in the app if you have installer access.

All the best,

BG