Power out - now I know why we got Powerwalls!

[jboy210]

Hi,

We just had a power outage and the power will not be up for 5+ hours or so according to PG&E. My wife has to give a video presentation in 2 hours and the demos are on her desktop computer. Is she panicking and running to move her presentation to a device and then run to Starbucks? Nope. Powerwall and solar to the rescue.

Here is what the system looks like right now. We work from home, and purchased the Solar and PWs to make sure outages like this were minor incidents.

PS. It is fascinating to watch the system increase and decrease solar production to moderate the power as the batteries charge up.

 

[TheLastDon]

Hi,

We just had a power outage and the power will not be up for 5+ hours or so according to PG&E. My wife has to give a video presentation in 2 hours and the demos are on her desktop computer. Is she panicking and running to move her presentation to a device and then run to Starbucks? Nope. Powerwall and solar to the rescue.

Here is what the system looks like right now. We work from home, and purchased the Solar and PWs to make sure outages like this were minor incidents.

View attachment 1059716

PS. It is fascinating to watch the system increase and decrease solar production to moderate the power as the batteries charge up.

I mean that's cool, but how often does that happen to you? I was looking at these power walls for my house, but I just couldn't justify the cost for my situation. I've lived here for 7 years and the power hasn't gone out once. I understand it can save a little money by using the extra power during peak hours, but even that wouldn't justify the huge cost. I already have solar panels and my bills are so small as it is. I'd be dead by the time it paid for itself.

 

[jboy210]

I mean that's cool, but how often does that happen to you? I was looking at these power walls for my house, but I just couldn't justify the cost for my situation. I've lived here for 7 years and the power hasn't gone out once. I understand it can save a little money by using the extra power during peak hours, but even that wouldn't justify the huge cost. I already have solar panels and my bills are so small as it is. I'd be dead by the time it paid for itself.

I think we lose power maybe twice a year. However, once it was for 30 hours. And our metrics are not just based on cost since we are running a business from home. We have to evaluate things like waste of time setting up alternative and business disruption impact. A few hours of this can eat up a ton of money in terms of lost billings and more.

On the personal side they have helped us go from $300-400 or so per month to near $0 on the electric bill. We also get very high reimbursement rates from PG&E on the Virtual Power Plant program when we send power to the grid during red flag events in the fall. And I love getting that check!

 

[bmah]

I mean that's cool, but how often does that happen to you? I was looking at these power walls for my house, but I just couldn't justify the cost for my situation. I've lived here for 7 years and the power hasn't gone out once. I understand it can save a little money by using the extra power during peak hours, but even that wouldn't justify the huge cost. I already have solar panels and my bills are so small as it is. I'd be dead by the time it paid for itself.

Everyone has to evaluate the benefits based on their own personal situations, and the criteria might not be strictly based on dollars and cents.

My 3 Powerwalls had something like a 10-year ROI based just on load-shifting, but when we had hours- and days-long outages in 2019 and 2020, I realized there are intangible benefits that came from being able to run our household with nearly no impact, compared to our neighbors who were sitting in the cold and dark. (This led to some odd questions in our house, like "is the power outage over yet?")

So maybe battery storage doesn't make much sense given your situation and goals. I get that. But there are others who are happy they have Powerwalls (or other battery storage), for reasons that might extend beyond just cost arbitrage or whatever.

Bruce.

 

[jboy210]

Everyone has to evaluate the benefits based on their own personal situations, and the criteria might not be strictly based on dollars and cents.

My 3 Powerwalls had something like a 10-year ROI based just on load-shifting, but when we had hours- and days-long outages in 2019 and 2020, I realized there are intangible benefits that came from being able to run our household with nearly no impact, compared to our neighbors who were sitting in the cold and dark. (This led to some odd questions in our house, like "is the power outage over yet?")

So maybe battery storage doesn't make much sense given your situation and goals. I get that. But there are others who are happy they have Powerwalls (or other battery storage), for reasons that might extend beyond just cost arbitrage or whatever.

Bruce.

Good points. We were sitting in 76F indoors while it was 95F outside. When you are working and trying find and fix some nasty bug you would pay a lot to not deal with the heat.

 

[jjrandorin]

I mean that's cool, but how often does that happen to you? I was looking at these power walls for my house, but I just couldn't justify the cost for my situation. I've lived here for 7 years and the power hasn't gone out once. I understand it can save a little money by using the extra power during peak hours, but even that wouldn't justify the huge cost. I already have solar panels and my bills are so small as it is. I'd be dead by the time it paid for itself.

The powerwalls dont tend to pay for themselves by themselves unless you have a situation like @jboy210 has, where you can factor in lost business because you work from home, etc.

Where they benefit is from peace of mind in the face of an outage, and ease of use. Generators are generally cheaper, but unless you get a whole home can be a bit of a pain to get going, maintain etc. Still, a generator is cheaper.

I have said this on a few threads where this question generally comes up though, and after going through a couple of power outages at my current home , along with the yearly threat of power safety power shut offs (PSPS), having powerwalls gives me an incredible mental "connection" to my home that we didnt have before.

We lost a bunch of food a couple different times, as I didnt have a generator, and wasnt really wanting to buy one because "we hardly ever have power outages".

I feel incredibly safe and secure in my home now. We have had a couple power safety shut offs since we got our powerwalls in 2020, as well as a couple of unplanned outages of a few hours, and we basically carried on with very little change. On the outages of no known length (that ended up being a few hours but we didnt know it), we did go into "curtailment" mode, reducing our energy usage by unplugging and turning off things we didnt need to use.

We watched a TV on a much lower power using TV, watched shows saved on my NAS instead of trying to use internet, unplugged some stuff (we have a sheet saved of things to unplug in a power outage in a room by room basis to cut power usage). We can cut homes energy run rate from approximately 1.6-1.8kWh to about 900 Wh, increasing our powerwall run time without impacting our lives much at all, and we can get it down to around 400wh by impacting ourselves a bit more but still being comfortable.

Anyway, its not a "pencil out financial" thing for me, its a comfort thing, and I love my powerwalls even though I am on NEM 1 so they wont ever really pay me back, per se.


EDIT.. @bmah and I were posting at the same time, and said the same basic thing (except I used way more words lmao).

@jboy210 , what do you do for internet if your power outage lasts longer than your ISP has for battery backup at whatever their station is? For us, thats about a 2 hour outage. We use our phones for hotspots, and limit internet usage, but I am a hybrid worker who works from home and office, not a full time home worker.

 

[ucmndd]

We’ve had two 5+ hour outages in the last 24 hours. Love my powerwalls and solar.

Here in the NorCal foothills there’s no such thing as a power “blip” any more. New wildfire safety protocols mean if the power goes out for almost any reason it’s multiple hours before it’s restored.

The one wrinkle in our plan is the local ISP does NOT have Powerwalls and the internet goes out when the power drops. Eero cellular tethering backup to the rescue.

 

[TheLastDon]

The powerwalls dont tend to pay for themselves by themselves unless you have a situation like @jboy210 has, where you can factor in lost business because you work from home, etc.

Where they benefit is from peace of mind in the face of an outage, and ease of use. Generators are generally cheaper, but unless you get a whole home can be a bit of a pain to get going, maintain etc. Still, a generator is cheaper.

I have said this on a few threads where this question generally comes up though, and after going through a couple of power outages at my current home , along with the yearly threat of power safety power shut offs (PSPS), having powerwalls gives me an incredible mental "connection" to my home that we didnt have before.

We lost a bunch of food a couple different times, as I didnt have a generator, and wasnt really wanting to buy one because "we hardly ever have power outages".

I feel incredibly safe and secure in my home now. We have had a couple power safety shut offs since we got our powerwalls in 2020, as well as a couple of unplanned outages of a few hours, and we basically carried on with very little change. On the outages of no known length (that ended up being a few hours but we didnt know it), we did go into "curtailment" mode, reducing our energy usage by unplugging and turning off things we didnt need to use.

We watched a TV on a much lower power using TV, watched shows saved on my NAS instead of trying to use internet, unplugged some stuff (we have a sheet saved of things to unplug in a power outage in a room by room basis to cut power usage). We can cut homes energy run rate from approximately 1.6-1.8kWh to about 900 Wh, increasing our powerwall run time without impacting our lives much at all, and we can get it down to around 400wh by impacting ourselves a bit more but still being comfortable.

Anyway, its not a "pencil out financial" thing for me, its a comfort thing, and I love my powerwalls even though I am on NEM 1 so they wont ever really pay me back, per se.


EDIT.. @bmah and I were posting at the same time, and said the same basic thing (except I used way more words lmao).

@jboy210 , what do you do for internet if your power outage lasts longer than your ISP has for battery backup at whatever their station is? For us, thats about a 2 hour outage. We use our phones for hotspots, and limit internet usage, but I am a hybrid worker who works from home and office, not a full time home worker.

Thanks for the write up. This is kind of the conclusion I have came up with too. It's not to save you money. It's more of a comfort/safety type of purchase. I don't think it works for my particular situation, but I was looking for someone to sell me on it by telling me something I wasn't considering. It's really cool tech.

 

[TheLastDon]

Everyone has to evaluate the benefits based on their own personal situations, and the criteria might not be strictly based on dollars and cents.

My 3 Powerwalls had something like a 10-year ROI based just on load-shifting, but when we had hours- and days-long outages in 2019 and 2020, I realized there are intangible benefits that came from being able to run our household with nearly no impact, compared to our neighbors who were sitting in the cold and dark. (This led to some odd questions in our house, like "is the power outage over yet?")

So maybe battery storage doesn't make much sense given your situation and goals. I get that. But there are others who are happy they have Powerwalls (or other battery storage), for reasons that might extend beyond just cost arbitrage or whatever.

Bruce.

Thanks for the response. That's kind of what I was thinking. I'm still going to try to find a way to somewhat justify this for my house. I love the tech!

 

[nwdiver]

Thanks for the response. That's kind of what I was thinking. I'm still going to try to find a way to somewhat justify this for my house. I love the tech!

Think of the low probability / high consequence events. A good surge thru the grid due to a geomagnetic storm could leave some parts of the country without power for weeks or months because we don't have spare transformers for sub stations and the lead time for replacements is often years.

Geomagnetic Storms and Long- Term Impacts on Power Systems

 

[GregBallantyne]

I mean that's cool, but how often does that happen to you? I was looking at these power walls for my house, but I just couldn't justify the cost for my situation. I've lived here for 7 years and the power hasn't gone out once. I understand it can save a little money by using the extra power during peak hours, but even that wouldn't justify the huge cost. I already have solar panels and my bills are so small as it is. I'd be dead by the time it paid for itself.

In 12 months of operation, our house has had 32 grid outages, the longest lasting 3 days. The rate of grid outages has been increasing in recent years. As climate change continues to develop, this rate will not decrease, but dangerous temperatures will. So this is more than simply "cool", and being "cool" will have more and more meaning as we move into the future. In Nevada, thatmfuture might be considered by many to be the here and now. In addition, net metering won't last forever - as many know too well. It's hard to make an ROI calculation for PWs, but but that might not be as difficult in the future as it is today. ROI is also hard to find when it comes to your grocery bill. I doubt that will be motivation for many to voluntarily give up eating tho.....
Hope this helps in your justification efforts.

 

[TheLastDon]

Think of the low probability / high consequence events. A good surge thru the grid due to a geomagnetic storm could leave some parts of the country without power for weeks or months because we don't have spare transformers for sub stations and the lead time for replacements is often years.

Geomagnetic Storms and Long- Term Impacts on Power Systems

I've lived in my house for 7 years and not one power outage. It's basically going to boil down to if I want to put my saving for a Model S or CyberTruck behind by 15k or not. That's a decision I'll make a little later down the road. I just bought a Model Y so my funds are drained a bit...lol

 

[GJones]

Dating back to our install in 2019, we have had over 100 events with the longest at 32 hours. Most of the events are only a few seconds or less than a minute - but, not a single blip in any of our household systems...desktop computers, refrigerator, freezers, AC...everything just hums along.

 

[BGbreeder]

We opted for the resiliency factor of storage, but then we went to 100% remote work, at which point the Powerwalls were essentially 100% paid off in my mind. They enable us continue to conduct business with no interruptions, and have been great at reducing the stresses of outages. My only regret is the lack of a generator charging system that I suspect will emerge from third parties with the passage of time.

Our power has been less and less reliable with the passage of time for a variety of reasons, increasing the value of storage.

All the best,

BG

 

[jboy210]

The powerwalls dont tend to pay for themselves by themselves unless you have a situation like @jboy210 has, where you can factor in lost business because you work from home, etc.

Where they benefit is from peace of mind in the face of an outage, and ease of use. Generators are generally cheaper, but unless you get a whole home can be a bit of a pain to get going, maintain etc. Still, a generator is cheaper.

I have said this on a few threads where this question generally comes up though, and after going through a couple of power outages at my current home , along with the yearly threat of power safety power shut offs (PSPS), having powerwalls gives me an incredible mental "connection" to my home that we didnt have before.

We lost a bunch of food a couple different times, as I didnt have a generator, and wasnt really wanting to buy one because "we hardly ever have power outages".

I feel incredibly safe and secure in my home now. We have had a couple power safety shut offs since we got our powerwalls in 2020, as well as a couple of unplanned outages of a few hours, and we basically carried on with very little change. On the outages of no known length (that ended up being a few hours but we didnt know it), we did go into "curtailment" mode, reducing our energy usage by unplugging and turning off things we didnt need to use.

We watched a TV on a much lower power using TV, watched shows saved on my NAS instead of trying to use internet, unplugged some stuff (we have a sheet saved of things to unplug in a power outage in a room by room basis to cut power usage). We can cut homes energy run rate from approximately 1.6-1.8kWh to about 900 Wh, increasing our powerwall run time without impacting our lives much at all, and we can get it down to around 400wh by impacting ourselves a bit more but still being comfortable.

Anyway, its not a "pencil out financial" thing for me, its a comfort thing, and I love my powerwalls even though I am on NEM 1 so they wont ever really pay me back, per se.


EDIT.. @bmah and I were posting at the same time, and said the same basic thing (except I used way more words lmao).

@jboy210 , what do you do for internet if your power outage lasts longer than your ISP has for battery backup at whatever their station is? For us, thats about a 2 hour outage. We use our phones for hotspots, and limit internet usage, but I am a hybrid worker who works from home and office, not a full time home worker.

With respect to the internet, that is a concern. We were out for about 5 hours yesterday and the internet stayed up the entire time. We have Comcast (or whatever they are these days) cable service and they seem to have good backup power supplies. Previously, we had a 2-day power outage when some guy took out a telephone pole with his car. During that outage after the first day, we lost the cable connection to the house. But Comcast has wifi at their boxes in the neighborhood and that was up. So, we could connect, but at 4-10 mbps max.

 

[TomServo]

Working with my installer to add 2 PW3s to our existing Enphase PV system and after all the tax credits and utility incentives my OTD should be less than $19K, turns out that is about $3K cheaper than what a 24 kWh generator would cost me.

 

[h2ofun]

I have installed 7 PW's a few years back. Never used them yet.

 

[h2ofun]

Working with my installer to add 2 PW3s to our existing Enphase PV system and after all the tax credits and utility incentives my OTD should be less than $19K, turns out that is about $3K cheaper than what a 24 kWh generator would cost me.

I would take the generator anyday

 

[nwdiver]

I would take the generator anyday

This does look a lot more convenient than just letting the sun refill your 'fuel tank'. We really don't get to meet people face to face enough these days.

 

[jjrandorin]

(moderator note)

I am not sure why this conversation always kicks up ("this conversation = "powerwall vs generator") but thats not what this thread is about so we arent going down that road in this thread. I am posting this to head it off now.

If that discussion wants to happen, it will need to be in its own thread.

thanks