Sorry for not responding earlier; I have no more information about the upgraded gateway, unfortunately.
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Powerwall 2: Installation
- Thread starter JeffreyY
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- Powerwall Tesla Energy
How long did it take after your permit was signed off as complete for PG&E to come do their inspection? The county inspector signed off on my installation last week. Did you get PTO before or after the PG&E inspection?
I assume you are referring City Permit, it was done quite while ago , I recall Aug'/Sept ?
Signed several docs after that, Finally , we received request for signing consent (ICF) forms it was early Jan & advised the process to complete within 90 days. for SGIP payment to be released.
After ICF sign-off, I was told it is a 2 step process, 1st step Engineering review which was completed last Feb'28 and 2nd step is field review (some sort) PGE inspected Battery Installation & PV grid Interconnect.
I have got my solar PV installed after PowerWall was installed, This thing got complicated as Tesla looks like screwed up. I got my Solar installed in Dec'2017 , while my powerwall got installed around Aug/Sept dont remember . Unfortunately , my PV got held up with Powerwall approval and it is expected to be approved along with Powerwall.
My permits are handled by the county because I'm in an unincorporated area, not a city jurisdiction.
My understanding is that if the interconnect paperwork for a PowerWall installation is completed correctly, the PG&E engineering review is bypassed and is basically fast-tracked for approval and inspection. It sounds like this did not happen in your case. Since you did not initially have on-site generation, you didn't qualify for Operating Mode 1: No Grid Charging. Now that the PV is combined in the interconnect process, you can get a normal solar interconnect and non-export battery interconnect agreement.
GUIDE TO ENERGY STORAGE CHARGING ISSUES FOR RULE 21 GENERATOR INTERCONNECTION
Not sure.. Possibly you are right.
I haven't heard from anyone in the forum got approval from PG&E for powerwall ?
I guess approval from PG&E would also mean approved for SGIP (for all SGIP applicants)
We placed a reservation for two Powerwalls last August, and are very happy to report that Tesla showed up this week to perform the installation, just in time for another round of storms! It took a team of three Tesla Energy employees roughly nine hours, from start to finish, to do what looked to me like a good job. The Powerwalls are located on a modest-sized, covered patio/porch just to the right of our front door. In preparation, we had a contractor pour a small concrete platform to keep people from bumping into the Powerwalls or from banging into them when shoveling snow.
In the first photo, most of the scrap wood and siding to the right was placed there by me, just in case, but it wasn't needed. Every circuit except for EV charging was moved into the subpanel immediately above the Powerwalls, and the box to the right is the Tesla Energy Gateway. The second photo shows the completed installation.
At this point, we're still waiting for the final inspection to take place and for the Powerwalls to be "registered" with Tesla and show up in the Tesla app. The installers told me that we won't have to wait for any sort of PTO (permission to operate) from Southern California Edison before being able to use the Powerwalls, since we aren't adding more solar panels at this time. Registration with Tesla is supposed to take 24-48 hours.
I insisted that the installers connect the system to our home wifi for reliability reasons. Apparently, their standard procedure is to check for a decent AT&T cellular signal, and if that exists, then not bother connecting to the customer's network. However, it's been my experience, at least up here in the mountains, that cellular service can degrade considerably during all but the shortest power outages. Voice calls may work, but data service may not. Our internet router is on a small UPS that's now (of course) backed up by the Powerwalls, so local network access during outages shouldn't be a problem.
I've accessed the Energy Gateway web interface by navigating in a web browser to its local IP address, which I found by way of our router's admin interface. The Energy Gateway UI currently provides basic "Start Powerwall" and "Stop Powerwall" functions, which I used yesterday to add a few kWh of charge from our solar PV system before putting the Powerwalls back into a "stopped" state. While waiting for app access, I figured we should at least be prepared for the possibility of a storm-related outage! It's been raining continuously since yesterday afternoon, and we're expecting snow later today.
In the first photo, most of the scrap wood and siding to the right was placed there by me, just in case, but it wasn't needed. Every circuit except for EV charging was moved into the subpanel immediately above the Powerwalls, and the box to the right is the Tesla Energy Gateway. The second photo shows the completed installation.
At this point, we're still waiting for the final inspection to take place and for the Powerwalls to be "registered" with Tesla and show up in the Tesla app. The installers told me that we won't have to wait for any sort of PTO (permission to operate) from Southern California Edison before being able to use the Powerwalls, since we aren't adding more solar panels at this time. Registration with Tesla is supposed to take 24-48 hours.
I insisted that the installers connect the system to our home wifi for reliability reasons. Apparently, their standard procedure is to check for a decent AT&T cellular signal, and if that exists, then not bother connecting to the customer's network. However, it's been my experience, at least up here in the mountains, that cellular service can degrade considerably during all but the shortest power outages. Voice calls may work, but data service may not. Our internet router is on a small UPS that's now (of course) backed up by the Powerwalls, so local network access during outages shouldn't be a problem.
I've accessed the Energy Gateway web interface by navigating in a web browser to its local IP address, which I found by way of our router's admin interface. The Energy Gateway UI currently provides basic "Start Powerwall" and "Stop Powerwall" functions, which I used yesterday to add a few kWh of charge from our solar PV system before putting the Powerwalls back into a "stopped" state. While waiting for app access, I figured we should at least be prepared for the possibility of a storm-related outage! It's been raining continuously since yesterday afternoon, and we're expecting snow later today.
Frankman60
Member
Nice installation. I’m surprised that Tesla prefers to use cellular for the Internet connection. I have a Ethernet cable waiting where my gateway will be installed and thought that would be better than WiFi or cellular. Does the gateway have as primary and secondary method for the Internet connection? What I mean is if the primary method (e.g. WiFi) is not available, would it try cellular next to get an Internet connection (like my S does)?
Your install looks good, but it clearly violates the working space requirements of NEC (or California's CEC) 110.26(A). The concern is the working space for the new load center above the Powerwalls. There are two issues: the Powerwalls stick out from the wall more than 6" beyond the front of the new load center, and your new concrete curb sticks out too far.
Basically, the rules say that a load center needs a clear space in front it that measures 30" wide by 36" deep by 78" tall from grade. Related electrical equipment is allowed to project up to 6" into that clear space, but nothing else is allowed in the space.
Cheers, Wayne
Basically, the rules say that a load center needs a clear space in front it that measures 30" wide by 36" deep by 78" tall from grade. Related electrical equipment is allowed to project up to 6" into that clear space, but nothing else is allowed in the space.
Cheers, Wayne
If they use Ethernet, they are at the mercy of the homeowner's setup (including needing firewall rules to connect to PW from WAN) .
If they use cellular, they have a direct connection along with contacts/support for the network.
I had meant to ask that question, but forgot! Hopefully it would try cellular if the home internet is down.
This occurred to me as a potential snafu, and I mentioned it to the lead installer when they did the site visit, but I'm hopeful that the inspector won't be too much of a stickler. All of the equipment is in the best possible location for our property. Technically, our recently-upgraded main panel has the same issue, as there's a concrete retaining wall below it that sticks out more than a foot in front of the panel. Thankfully, our County inspectors tend to be forgiving of such issues in the mountain areas, where many of our homes are essentially upgraded cabins with lots of quirks.
I waited for a long time for my Powerwalla to show up in the app and then found out that the installers had skipped the registration step. It turns out there is a self-registration web page: Powerwall Self Registration | Tesla
Once I registered on that page, the Powerwalls showed up within minutes.
Thank you! That worked for me, and I can access the Powerwalls via the app. The funny thing is, the Energy Gateway UI still shows the registration as being incomplete and the percent charge as being higher. The web UI is showing 38% charge, while the app is showing 35%. Maybe there's a delay somewhere, or perhaps 35% is the useable energy whereas 38% reflects the "absolute" state of charge.
I'm also wondering if one or both of the CTs (for monitoring power flow) might have been installed wrong. Here's the current power flow according to the app. The solar output is low because it's very cloudy and raining a bit, but it's odd that no energy flow to our home is indicated. According to our utility meter, we have a bit below 0.7 kW coming in from the grid, not going out to the grid. It also appears, from our SunPower monitoring UI, that our panels are generating about 0.4 kW, not 1.1 kW. I may end up calling Tesla.
I went through the same situation the local UI always said registration was incomplete. I also used the self registration to get the app to work. When I called Tesla they said everything was fine. The message annoyed me so I finally just ran the wizard myself and that made the message go away. FWIW I didn't change any of the values.
arnold
Interesting! In my case, the wizard asks for the "lead installer email" address and a password, which it says is "in manual", to log in. I don't have that info, and my Tesla account won't do the trick.
I just called Tesla Support regarding my concern about the CTs, and it does seem that there's some sort of issue. I'm supposed to hear back in a day or two. Happy that I didn't have to wait on hold much!
Any email address will do. The password is usually based on your serial number, I'm doing this from memory but most recently it has been "s" followed by the serial number. This information has been posted around here before.
arnold
That's a capital "S" followed by the serial number.
Thank you, that worked! I'll admit, I haven't consistently kept up with all of the Tesla Energy posts.
Going through the wizard, I mostly left the defaults in place, so as not to screw anything up. However, the installers had chosen the wrong SunPower inverter model, so I fixed that. More importantly, the first two of four CTs were "flipped", meaning that our home energy use and our grid use were wrongly showing up as negative. I unchecked the "flip" option for both, and now the gateway UI and the app appear to be showing the power flows correctly. So, if Tesla Support ends up looking at this, I expect they'll conclude that nothing is wrong.
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SoundDaTrumpet
Member
After paying the deposit (July 19th), one day followed up with call and email (July 20th). SGIP approval in late Dec '17, still waiting (+3 months) for call-back for installation. Benefit of doubt says it is due to rain delays for their installation teams. Energy advisor radio silence for a month.
