Powerwall 2: Installation

[tomguy]

I have a Powerwall installation question.

I noticed on both my house and my parent's house that we applied for SGIP, Tesla threw in a $2700 Panel Upgrade fee. My parent's home recently (within 2 months) had their panel upgraded from 100A to 200A. I was told by Tesla that the Powerwall requires a separate meter from the circuit break panel and both homes would require taking apart the old panel and converting it to this type of panel.

I hate to see that we recently paid almost 3k for a panel upgrade to 200A and within months have to pay another $2700 to take it out and put in almost the same thing.

Any ideas on this?

 

[abasile]

Wow, we also have a main panel, installed earlier this year, that incorporates both the meter and circuit breakers. Perhaps the reasoning is that the "energy gateway" needs to sit between the meter and the main panel. Could this cost be avoided by only backing up a sub panel instead of the whole house?

In reference to my prior statement that I'd have saved money by going with Tesla/SolarCity rather than a third party, in light of the above, I'm no longer sure if that's true! My understanding is that my contract with LA Solar Group is all inclusive. We'll see. I do like their service.

 

[SoundDaTrumpet]

I have talked to a few developers about this. The "preferred" connection point for Tesla equipment needs to happen on the supply side (not load side). In layman's terms, it should connect before the bus bar (and after the meter). To use the gateway to limit power to the busbar "via computer methods" is wishful because a very conservative/safe approach is used. A simple software bug or security breach can potentially put electrical systems in jeopardy. Along these lines, my entrance service panel has no main breaker (main lug only) so I find it interesting that I am exempt from the 120% rule and now I'm limited by only the electrical service conductors. I am not an electrician, but what I have been reading, is that a disconnect location marks where the supply vs. load start/stop.

 

[miimura]

The only reason that the PowerWall installation is at all complicated is that people want it to provide backup power. If you don't care that it goes down with the grid, it can be installed like a normal 7kW solar inverter. It would still allow you to self-consume your solar power and provide grid services. However, the backup power feature is very desirable to most people.

 

[brucet999]

I have a Powerwall installation question.

I noticed on both my house and my parent's house that we applied for SGIP, Tesla threw in a $2700 Panel Upgrade fee. My parent's home recently (within 2 months) had their panel upgraded from 100A to 200A. I was told by Tesla that the Powerwall requires a separate meter from the circuit break panel and both homes would require taking apart the old panel and converting it to this type of panel.

I hate to see that we recently paid almost 3k for a panel upgrade to 200A and within months have to pay another $2700 to take it out and put in almost the same thing.

Any ideas on this?

Even if it were true that the meter must be separate from the panel, it should be possible to mount a free-standing meter housing in front of the existing panel and move the meter there. That shouldn't cost $2700.

 

[tomguy]

Even if it were true that the meter must be separate from the panel, it should be possible to mount a free-standing meter housing in front of the existing panel and move the meter there. That shouldn't cost $2700.

I have two different homes and both are recommending the same things. I have three friends at work and all live in the same area and they're all being recommended the panel upgrade cost pricing ranging from 2300 to 2700.

 

[miimura]

Swell Energy built a huge cushion into the original proposal for all kinds of possible install issues that I knew I wouldn't have. My only concern is that they might still charge the full contract price. If they do, I will make them come back out and survey to do the install in a more ideal way. I conceded on the easiest way, but it's not the best way to install due to the slope on the side of my house where the meter is located. I will push for them to put in a concrete pad around the other corner of the house. The bottom line is that if they can do it for the initial proposed amount and I cancel, I give up my deposit. I knew that this could be an issue from the start.

 

[astrothad]

My two PowerWall2 units were installed yesterday. SolarCity had blocked time for both yesterday and today, but the electricians showed up around 8am and were finished their work by about 2pm. They did have to wait for about 60-90 additional minutes to work out networking issues with the PowerWall connection to the mothership, but I was able to monitor energy production, flow, and storage after that. The PowerWalls were originally charging off the grid (during peak hours - yikes!), but within a few hours switched to only drawing the same amount the PV array was producing. They started at about 24% capacity, and have been charging at a maximum rate of 3.3 kW when available from solar. They are currently at 94%. Panels are currently putting out 4.3 kW, with 3.3 kW going to the PowerWalls.

One thing to note - when you get your plans, that may not be what the electricians follow. The information I got from SolarCity sounded like this relatively complicated electrical surgery where they had to swap out the main panel. The electricians (who were very professional and efficient) looked at the system and concluded that the main panel did not need an upgrade. I have two SolarCity PV arrays and inverters, and the inverters now feed into a load concentrator panel. There is also a new "main panel" for shutting down the connection to the grid, but my originial main panel hangs off of this. They said the line drawings that the engineers work with may not represent the final design. I'm glad that's true in my case - what the install crew came up with looks a lot cleaner than what the line drawings were hinting at. When they threw the switch to the grid, the PWs picked up the load almost immediately.

Also, I couldn't do the payment through PayPal without logging in first. It wouldn't go through if I said to just use my credit card without logging in. Hopefully, that makes that go more smoothly for people who are trying to pay through the link that Tesla/SolarCity provides.

I see the line for my SGIP rebate on the fabled spreadsheet, so now we'll see what happens with that.

I would provide pictures, but I think my spouse would prefer if they redid the plaster they had to cut for the installation on the back of our house first. The electrical crew did say that someone from SolarCity would contact us about doing that as part of the installation process.

 

[astrothad]

Also, I saw charging today at higher than 4 kW. It was a bit cloudy here, but still too warm to avoid running the A/C.

Watching the energy flow on the app is strangely addictive. There were a few seconds where power was drawn from or put onto the grid, but for the most part, we just don't use it. Is anyone in California seeing how they'll implement SGIP yet? I haven't seen anything where the grid draws on the batteries yet. Of course, SoCal Edison just signed off on their inspection today. I'd like to know if we have any control over SGIP usage, or did entering the agreement essentially sign the energy over whenever they need it?

 

[SoundDaTrumpet]

Astrothad, thanks for keeping us posted about how the app works.

I don't think you signed your energy over whenever [SoCal Edison] needs it. The "Residential Energy Storage Affidavit" (visit selfgenca.com --> resources...) describes two options: (a) Option A (...Demand Response), and (b) Option B (...amount equivalent to 52 complete cycles each year for five years). Option B seems to repeat language in the prior paragraph. Option A looks unsupported by the Tesla App currently. I am curious about Option A because this requires a lot of coordination and software integration with an individual's rate schedules and in-app preferences.

 

[Bigtanuki]

Anyone with PW2 installed fully discharge their PW2 during peak TOU and then charge overnight in super off peak rates for full on arbitrage? We're Netmetered on EV-TOU -- the PV is undersized for total house consumption with two EVs. During daytime we're ahead, but when kids get home we start outpacing the PV at 5pm and draw during shoulder times until 9pm.

Ideally would want to be neutral or ahead during all periods of peak and able to discharge the battery during any of that time, and then set the charge from 12midnight to 5am on the battery to be ready for the next day. Does the PW2 program allow for that?

Your system and plans sound just like mine. I have a 4kW PV system and am planning on ultimately installing 3 Powerwall units to be able to fully supply my 48 amp HPWC (~11.5 kW). The California SGIP program limits residential rebates to a max of 10kW power out so I am initially working with SolarCity to install two and pending successful outcome I will install a third unit. If the stars align and I can get one more verified referral (link here) then I will be able to use the referral prize and save the $5500 for the third unit I planned.
I have to say that SolarCity hasn't inspired much confidence. I have had to go round and round with their engineering group, through their "Energy Specialist" because direct communication between customer and engineering seems to be no allowed. Luckily, when I had an installation walk through last week the electrician on the project seemed to be able to do what I wanted. I just signed my contract so we'll see how long it takes. I'm in San Luis Obispo county and the crew chief for installations indicated that they had completed only "5 or 6" installs to date.
Wish me luck.

 

[Bigtanuki]

SolarCity just finished my 2x powerwall install. They initially thought it was going to take two days after first showing up, but some more people showed up and they had a team of five people working and completed it by 4:30 pm, after they showed up at 9 am. I was a little surprised they didn't show up earlier in the window to give themselves more time. But I am thoroughly impressed by their speed.

They did the install one in front of another with a bracket in between. In order to do this the units had to sit on the ground. However the patio area was sloped for drainage which meant they spent quite a bit of time trying to shim and align the two units. It seems the connector brackets have very low tolerance for out of alignment units. Also they wanted to mount into a stud behind the stucco wall despite sitting on the ground.

Unfortunately they had some problems provisioning it so someone will be back to do that on another day. So now it's sitting there doing... something. Making green light from its side, I guess.

Total cost was $11k for 2x powerwalls, $700 hardware, $150 permit, $900 installation, $1k taxes coming out to $13744.50. Counting on a step 2 SGIP of $9280 and ITC. I am in an EV rate plan so any way to avoid peak/partial peak will be a win.

View attachment 233401

Great looking install! I'm planning on two stacked units as well but mine will be inside the garage adjacent to my PV sytem equipment.

 

[Bigtanuki]

I have a Powerwall installation question.

I noticed on both my house and my parent's house that we applied for SGIP, Tesla threw in a $2700 Panel Upgrade fee. My parent's home recently (within 2 months) had their panel upgraded from 100A to 200A. I was told by Tesla that the Powerwall requires a separate meter from the circuit break panel and both homes would require taking apart the old panel and converting it to this type of panel.

I hate to see that we recently paid almost 3k for a panel upgrade to 200A and within months have to pay another $2700 to take it out and put in almost the same thing.

Any ideas on this?

I just went through the same thing. No amount of emails to Tesla seemed to resolve the issue. However, when SC showed up for the installation walk through, the electrician seemed to be able to understand the issue. They dispensed with the panel upgrade but my loads, except for the PV and mains in are moving to a separate load panel which is rolled into the cost of my install saving me the $2700. Just be sure to be there for walk through if you can't get any traction via email.

 

[Ulmo]

Installed today! First, background:

1. The concrete slab used to be for a shed. Then it was used for garbage cans. Now, it's getting dual use.
2. The exterior conduit was my unlucky choice, for expedience, due to unusual site parameters; most installations would have more options to hide all the conduit; routing it through the interior of the wall was possible for me, for a no-conduit installation, but it would have required extensive interior work, including moving storage that was set aside in a finished space in the garage; that whole project to hide 15 feet of pipe would take about a week. I may do it within a few years, but I'm not in a huge hurry. Note that only one conduit goes to the PowerWall. (Also pictured is the conduit sticking out for the HPWC; that was against my wishes, and I would also like to put the labor in someday necessary to route that via the interior. The main limitation is that little circuit breaker box; I'd have to make a new hole in it, or replace it with another with such a hole.)
   
3. They also installed the exterior switch box that connects to the main service panel with the PG&E meter (no backup).
4. He rerouted my existing solar installation away from the main panel and into the secondary (backed up) panel. Note that my existing solar installation was installed by a local installer and has a SolarEdge on it, so no issues there connecting that AC to the AC PowerWalls; it does mean loss DC->AC->DC, though. (And if charging an electric car at night via HPWC, then DC->AC->DC->AC->DC, then finally ->AC to the car motors to use them. Quite a journey of conversions!)
   
5. I specified backup as a secondary objective, with primary objective being load shift from solar to evening use.
6. After the below pictures, I chose 30% reserved. I'll have to read the manual and watch the flows to figure out better settings.
7. Working with the installation person (electrician) was enjoyable; he's been 10 years in the trade and 4 years with Solar City. He worked alone (except for cleanup when someone came in I presume from another nearby job to help). He arrived at 9AM, talked with me on the phone basically confirming everything Engineering said (I was at work all day until 5:30PM and left notes everywhere), and I labeled everything so it was easy for him. He finished by around 6:15PM. I found SolarCity to be quite straightforward and easy to work with once I understood their basic foo; of course, I had a few years to learn that foo.
8. Providing network for it was easy, since I bought a Netgear 8 port switch for $60 on Amazon, and installed it a few nights before SolarCity installation to an existing Ethernet outlet I put in the garage back in 2003.
9. Everything was completely installed from beginning to finish in one day by one installer as described above (except 20 minutes of cleanup with a second installer). I was already configuring it in my app before they were finished cleaning up. Everything went smoothly as far as that's concerned.
10. After testing, they said that labeling and inspection will come at a later date. I don't know if that's another scheduled event. I'll try to stay on top of any aspect of it that I need to handle.
11. He mimicked power outage twice; both times, the whole house and all of its various electronics (including computers, networks, etc.) stayed on 100%; the switchover is very fast. I don't know how fast.

Anybody who follows my posts will know that I am (usually) quick to criticize and/or praise. I have to say that I am very pleasantly surprised with how smoothly everything went, with the number of things that worked right, had the right answer, and just happened. I didn't really have to worry about much of anything. This is proving that these batteries are going to be a breeze to install (once they smooth out any other bumps leading up to install day). The engineering specifications in my case were right, and seemed to work out well. And finally, the product is nice and does what it's supposed to.

After all, it's a battery.

Now, they need to find a way to get a good installation experience into the hands of more people.

And, I need to work on emptying out that storage area of the garage and getting that conduit run rerouted inside (my hassle).
Now, pictures:

 

[Ulmo]

Wow - $900 for three electricians for 7.5 hours is not a lot of money. It seems that Tesla is subsidizing many of their Powerwall 2 installations.

In retrospect, it would have been better if I had signed an installation contract with Tesla/SolarCity instead of a third party installer, as I'm still waiting and will have to pay more in the end. However, a couple of months ago, it wasn't clear to me that I'd be able to benefit from SGIP with Tesla, and that has been proven to not be an issue.

In my experience, it is one installer for 9 hours, so around $100/hour; slightly below market rate around here. So, yes, they're subsidizing it, but I think they think the price of installation will go down over time, and according to the posters here, it took 5 installers all day for the first I saw, 3 installers all day for the second I saw, and 1 installer all day for mine; that labor price just dropped from $5,000 to $1,000 in those three samples (if indeed their labor price is around $100; it might be lower (or higher)).

 

[abasile]

And, I need to work on emptying out that storage area of the garage and getting that conduit run rerouted inside (my hassle).

Great writeup and photos!

JMHO, but do you really need to bother with moving that conduit inside? It's where you put your trash cans anyway, probably not the prettiest part of your property. If it were me, I'd just paint over it and forget it.

 

[Ulmo]

Great writeup and photos!

JMHO, but do you really need to bother with moving that conduit inside? It's where you put your trash cans anyway, probably not the prettiest part of your property. If it were me, I'd just paint over it and forget it.

I plan on doing exactly that. I also plan on rerouting it. I have dual possible plans. I live in a realm of probabilities I'm hoping if I paint over it, it will look so great in context that I won't have to do anything else. I'll alcohol the oils off, scuff sand it, clean the dust off, metal primer it, then start with the various house coats. Ugh! Maybe it will be fun anyway. Maybe I'll skip scuff sanding it.

 

[JeffreyY]

[QUOTE="
I would provide pictures, but I think my spouse would prefer if they redid the plaster they had to cut for the installation on the back of our house first. The electrical crew did say that someone from SolarCity would contact us about doing that as part of the installation process.[/QUOTE]

Pics please!

 

[Ulmo]

Installed today! First, background:

1. The concrete slab used to be for a shed. Then it was used for garbage cans. Now, it's getting dual use.
2. The exterior conduit was my unlucky choice, for expedience, due to unusual site parameters; most installations would have more options to hide all the conduit; routing it through the interior of the wall was possible for me, for a no-conduit installation, but it would have required extensive interior work, including moving storage that was set aside in a finished space in the garage; that whole project to hide 15 feet of pipe would take about a week. I may do it within a few years, but I'm not in a huge hurry. Note that only one conduit goes to the PowerWall. (Also pictured is the conduit sticking out for the HPWC; that was against my wishes, and I would also like to put the labor in someday necessary to route that via the interior. The main limitation is that little circuit breaker box; I'd have to make a new hole in it, or replace it with another with such a hole.)
   
3. They also installed the exterior switch box that connects to the main service panel with the PG&E meter (no backup).
4. He rerouted my existing solar installation away from the main panel and into the secondary (backed up) panel. Note that my existing solar installation was installed by a local installer and has a SolarEdge on it, so no issues there connecting that AC to the AC PowerWalls; it does mean loss DC->AC->DC, though. (And if charging an electric car at night via HPWC, then DC->AC->DC->AC->DC, then finally ->AC to the car motors to use them. Quite a journey of conversions!)
   
5. I specified backup as a secondary objective, with primary objective being load shift from solar to evening use.
6. After the below pictures, I chose 30% reserved. I'll have to read the manual and watch the flows to figure out better settings.
7. Working with the installation person (electrician) was enjoyable; he's been 10 years in the trade and 4 years with Solar City. He worked alone (except for cleanup when someone came in I presume from another nearby job to help). He arrived at 9AM, talked with me on the phone basically confirming everything Engineering said (I was at work all day until 5:30PM and left notes everywhere), and I labeled everything so it was easy for him. He finished by around 6:15PM. I found SolarCity to be quite straightforward and easy to work with once I understood their basic foo; of course, I had a few years to learn that foo.
8. Providing network for it was easy, since I bought a Netgear 8 port switch for $60 on Amazon, and installed it a few nights before SolarCity installation to an existing Ethernet outlet I put in the garage back in 2003.
9. Everything was completely installed from beginning to finish in one day by one installer as described above (except 20 minutes of cleanup with a second installer). I was already configuring it in my app before they were finished cleaning up. Everything went smoothly as far as that's concerned.
10. After testing, they said that labeling and inspection will come at a later date. I don't know if that's another scheduled event. I'll try to stay on top of any aspect of it that I need to handle.
11. He mimicked power outage twice; both times, the whole house and all of its various electronics (including computers, networks, etc.) stayed on 100%; the switchover is very fast. I don't know how fast.

Anybody who follows my posts will know that I am (usually) quick to criticize and/or praise. I have to say that I am very pleasantly surprised with how smoothly everything went, with the number of things that worked right, had the right answer, and just happened. I didn't really have to worry about much of anything. This is proving that these batteries are going to be a breeze to install (once they smooth out any other bumps leading up to install day). The engineering specifications in my case were right, and seemed to work out well. And finally, the product is nice and does what it's supposed to.

After all, it's a battery.

Now, they need to find a way to get a good installation experience into the hands of more people.

And, I need to work on emptying out that storage area of the garage and getting that conduit run rerouted inside (my hassle).
Now, pictures:

View attachment 236738 View attachment 236739 View attachment 236740 View attachment 236741 View attachment 236742View attachment 236744 View attachment 236743

Solar power during day action:

Last night when I did "customize" to shift solar to evening with backup 25% reserve, it used up anything left last night until it got down to 25%, then I set it to 20% and it used it down to 20%. Now it's using only solar to charge itself. This makes perfect sense.

Before I had the batteries installed, I was earning Day rate credits during peak solar output. Now I'm not earning those valuable day rate NEM credits. As the solar output fills the battery, it will start using solar for the grid. I can tune the backup reserve to take in less solar so that I can get more solar NEM credits. I'll have to see how this balances out.

Obviously, I should double and triple my solar panels and get double the batteries to really pinch out PG&E. I'll look at the balance over the next few weeks for now.

I need to get another EV, since one was sold.

This is same version of software as in my post from last night.

More current screenshots:

 

[astrothad]

[QUOTE="
I would provide pictures, but I think my spouse would prefer if they redid the plaster they had to cut for the installation on the back of our house first. The electrical crew did say that someone from SolarCity would contact us about doing that as part of the installation process.

Pics please![/QUOTE]

Patience SolarCity scheduled someone to patch the stucco this Tuesday. I'll post some pics after that.