Aloha all. Sorry I didn't see these questions earlier. I put in a request to my HECO person if they are willing to accept calls.
This may seem quite surprising, but there is a cadre of people within HECO who really are interested in figuring out the right way to use solar and batteries to complement the grid. There is a significant study going in Hawaii which myself and two of my neighbors are participating in. Since Hawaii leads the nation in solar penetration, we are actually on the cutting edge as a community.
The problem with high solar penetration is it creates a high voltage situation on the neighborhood circuit / transformer. Aka when he sun is really high and there are no clouds, everyone's solar is at max output and often people aren't home so consumption is low. Net result is a lot of power flows back into the grid.
So, the notion is that advanced inverters can be tied into an advanced control system which is responsive to high voltage on the neighborhood circuit. The advanced inverters allow for curtailment during this time period of ultra high productivity. I'm not real hot on this curtailment aspect, but the pilot lets me get my solar faster than replacing the transformer in my neighborhood, and I can always opt back out, so, I'm in for this pilot.
However, what's most interesting is the battery pilot. In this pilot, the notion is to allow the batteries to absorb peak production and thereby prevent this high level of back flow onto the grid thereby also preventing this high voltage situation. The conundrum for me is that since I have NEM, effectively the grid is my battery so, there is less justification for multiple PW2's. Thus, PW2 quantity is really equal to runtime when the power is out. With battery technology being relatively new, it does make some sense to not buy too many batteries right now if one believes next year another big upgrade to the PW will occur.
The cool thing about the Tesla PW2 is when you install a system, you also get a gateway. The gateway is super smart and super capable. It can mimic the sine wave of the grid. I posted previously in the PW2 thread on this, but basically, when the grid goes off-line the PW2's kick in and the gateway cuts the house off from the grid and can mimic the grid. The mimicking of the grid sine wave allows your solar to boot back up and essentially then you're running off solar (if during the day).
There's more in the PW2 thread, but hopefully this answers people's questions.
I'm quite impressed though with HECO for trying to find advanced solutions for high solar penetration and I am working with them very closely to try to get this figured out.
This may seem quite surprising, but there is a cadre of people within HECO who really are interested in figuring out the right way to use solar and batteries to complement the grid. There is a significant study going in Hawaii which myself and two of my neighbors are participating in. Since Hawaii leads the nation in solar penetration, we are actually on the cutting edge as a community.
The problem with high solar penetration is it creates a high voltage situation on the neighborhood circuit / transformer. Aka when he sun is really high and there are no clouds, everyone's solar is at max output and often people aren't home so consumption is low. Net result is a lot of power flows back into the grid.
So, the notion is that advanced inverters can be tied into an advanced control system which is responsive to high voltage on the neighborhood circuit. The advanced inverters allow for curtailment during this time period of ultra high productivity. I'm not real hot on this curtailment aspect, but the pilot lets me get my solar faster than replacing the transformer in my neighborhood, and I can always opt back out, so, I'm in for this pilot.
However, what's most interesting is the battery pilot. In this pilot, the notion is to allow the batteries to absorb peak production and thereby prevent this high level of back flow onto the grid thereby also preventing this high voltage situation. The conundrum for me is that since I have NEM, effectively the grid is my battery so, there is less justification for multiple PW2's. Thus, PW2 quantity is really equal to runtime when the power is out. With battery technology being relatively new, it does make some sense to not buy too many batteries right now if one believes next year another big upgrade to the PW will occur.
The cool thing about the Tesla PW2 is when you install a system, you also get a gateway. The gateway is super smart and super capable. It can mimic the sine wave of the grid. I posted previously in the PW2 thread on this, but basically, when the grid goes off-line the PW2's kick in and the gateway cuts the house off from the grid and can mimic the grid. The mimicking of the grid sine wave allows your solar to boot back up and essentially then you're running off solar (if during the day).
There's more in the PW2 thread, but hopefully this answers people's questions.
I'm quite impressed though with HECO for trying to find advanced solutions for high solar penetration and I am working with them very closely to try to get this figured out.