Hi all,
Very happy to have found this forum. I'm struggling a bit and am hoping someone is familiar with my issue.
I had a new Powerwall 2 installed on 25th Nov (2 weeks ago).
It is installed as a Backup only (i.e. large UPS essentially). I live in South Africa, so this is to combat the rolling blackouts each day. I may look at solar as well in future, but for now, financially, I have opted for battery alone as a sanity protector .
Following installation, and following the very first black out (26th), when grid was once again available, the unit began charging, but a few minutes later cut the power to the home (and in this first instance the earth leakage switch also tripped).
I reported this to the installer, who told me they would log a support ticket with Tesla, which they apparently did.
Fast forward two weeks, there has been no word from Tesla, and installers just note that they are unable to troubleshoot this from their side, and "only Tesla" can.
Whether or not this is true, I have been looking into the issue myself and have found the following:
Below is what these "micro stutters" look like:
There were 6 of these following the 4-hour outage yesterday, two of which were accompanied with cutting power to the home.
The installer, while being "Tesla certified", say they've never seen this before, and also noted that the Powerwall should not be charging at 5Kw.
They also did not know how to setup the App, nor did they know what the Operating modes are, or how these are to be setup. (I suspect that someone gave them guidance re the gateway, as they seemed to be on the phone with someone while they worked on that.)
When "assisting" me setup the App, they basically "button bashed" their way through until it accepted their input. My fear is that they did this same thing while setting up the gateway and while using whatever installer configuration settings they have access to. (Welcome to South Africa I suppose. )
Anyway, I have read on this forum that the PW's are able to charge at 5KW (and is not necessarily a problem), and the fact mine is, could be tied to the Time-based operation mode, which is the only operation mode available to me through the App currently. This is set to Backup 100%. And then blank entries or junk data for the periods.
I have a lot of theories, sans any assistance from Tesla or installer:
Currently my hope is that if I am able to set the Time-base settings in some way, in order to limit the charging to 3.3KW, that this may help to alleviate the issue, or at least cancel potential cause #1 above. (If anyone knows of a setup re Time-based custom settings which could cause the PW to limit down to 3.3, please let me know?)
One last theory I have is that the PW mistakenly registers a "grid outage" when there is not one, and while it is still connected to grid. The combined pull for it charging (5kw) + the homes pull exceeds what it is able to use. We cannot push power back into the grid in SA, so it may be behaving like an off-grid unit when it receives more power from a solar installation than what it can use to charge/discharge with + what the home is pulling. It just shuts down and the home loses power as there is more power than it can deal with. So, it almost thinks the grid is alternative incoming (solar).
Me spit-balling, but long story short is that I could use any expertise and help available, as I am definitely not going to get it from installer, and Tesla seems to take weeks.
I have no way of bypassing the Tesla unit, so I need to find a way to stop these power cuts.
Many thanks for any help,
Jason
Very happy to have found this forum. I'm struggling a bit and am hoping someone is familiar with my issue.
I had a new Powerwall 2 installed on 25th Nov (2 weeks ago).
It is installed as a Backup only (i.e. large UPS essentially). I live in South Africa, so this is to combat the rolling blackouts each day. I may look at solar as well in future, but for now, financially, I have opted for battery alone as a sanity protector .
Following installation, and following the very first black out (26th), when grid was once again available, the unit began charging, but a few minutes later cut the power to the home (and in this first instance the earth leakage switch also tripped).
I reported this to the installer, who told me they would log a support ticket with Tesla, which they apparently did.
Fast forward two weeks, there has been no word from Tesla, and installers just note that they are unable to troubleshoot this from their side, and "only Tesla" can.
Whether or not this is true, I have been looking into the issue myself and have found the following:
- The unit seamlessly switches to battery when grid becomes unavailable
- The unit seamlessly switches to grid when it becomes available, and begins charging
- The unit charges at 5 Kwh mostly
- After a minute, or few minutes, and while charging (and if I watch the App), the unit goes through a series of "grid outage detected", switching back and forth between charging and discharging
- The grid is on and available during this time (as my neighbours all have power and are not experiencing dips or outages)
- Now the real issue:
- Periodically, when encountering one of these, the unit will just cut the power to my home
- And in one out of 4 times the earth leakage will also trip
Below is what these "micro stutters" look like:
There were 6 of these following the 4-hour outage yesterday, two of which were accompanied with cutting power to the home.
The installer, while being "Tesla certified", say they've never seen this before, and also noted that the Powerwall should not be charging at 5Kw.
They also did not know how to setup the App, nor did they know what the Operating modes are, or how these are to be setup. (I suspect that someone gave them guidance re the gateway, as they seemed to be on the phone with someone while they worked on that.)
When "assisting" me setup the App, they basically "button bashed" their way through until it accepted their input. My fear is that they did this same thing while setting up the gateway and while using whatever installer configuration settings they have access to. (Welcome to South Africa I suppose. )
Anyway, I have read on this forum that the PW's are able to charge at 5KW (and is not necessarily a problem), and the fact mine is, could be tied to the Time-based operation mode, which is the only operation mode available to me through the App currently. This is set to Backup 100%. And then blank entries or junk data for the periods.
I have a lot of theories, sans any assistance from Tesla or installer:
- There is not enough grid available post outage to allow the PW to charge at 5kw + home to pull, thus PW thinks there is a "grid outage"
- And is perhaps not fast enough in adapting /balancing its charge rate/pull in the event that the incoming grid availability is variable as the community comes back online.
- Frequency-Watt mode (ramp up and ramp down) is not correctly tweaked to allow for local grid variation
- I believe this is one of those settings which only Tesla can tweak?
- The unit was just plain installed and setup incorrectly
- The unit is faulty
Currently my hope is that if I am able to set the Time-base settings in some way, in order to limit the charging to 3.3KW, that this may help to alleviate the issue, or at least cancel potential cause #1 above. (If anyone knows of a setup re Time-based custom settings which could cause the PW to limit down to 3.3, please let me know?)
One last theory I have is that the PW mistakenly registers a "grid outage" when there is not one, and while it is still connected to grid. The combined pull for it charging (5kw) + the homes pull exceeds what it is able to use. We cannot push power back into the grid in SA, so it may be behaving like an off-grid unit when it receives more power from a solar installation than what it can use to charge/discharge with + what the home is pulling. It just shuts down and the home loses power as there is more power than it can deal with. So, it almost thinks the grid is alternative incoming (solar).
Me spit-balling, but long story short is that I could use any expertise and help available, as I am definitely not going to get it from installer, and Tesla seems to take weeks.
I have no way of bypassing the Tesla unit, so I need to find a way to stop these power cuts.
Many thanks for any help,
Jason