Powerwall 2 strange behaviour

[Ditchb]

Hi Folks, Wondering if anyone has seen this before and can advise what may be happening.

Powerwall 2 was installed in November, has been working fine although hasn’t been getting a lot of charge through the winter months. For the last 2 days once the charge has reached zero in an evening (having charged to 7% yesterday and 11% today) the Powerwall then starts to charge from the grid for circa 5 minutes. It then dischages until flat and charges again for around 5 minutes then looping a few times.

Last night it did this for about half an hour. This evening it was only a few times.

Screenshot from yesterday;

I called Tesla support but 32 hours later I am waiting to hear back.....

Any input greatfully received.

Ditch

 

[Shygar]

Has it been cold where you live? I notice mine charges slower from solar if it is colder outside but eventually ramps up.

 

[Ditchb]

Hi Shygar, thanks for the message. 8 degrees Celsius ‘high’ today. Was far colder in December and didn’t notice this. I guess it might be conditioning itself but really no idea!!

 

[Shygar]

What version is your backup gateway on? I just recently got 1.11.2 but haven't noticed any difference yet.

 

[Ditchb]

Hi again. Am now on 1.11.2 I looked last night after the funny spikes and at that point it was on the previous version.

 

[yesngo]

I hadn't noticed it, but for the past month, by powerwall has basically been doing nothing. No charging or discharging. Just slowing losing it's charge daily (now down to 43%). I only noticed this about a week ago, and thought it was the firmware, as I read on the Tesla forum of some erratic behavior for some people. I'm now on version 1.11.2, but still nothing from my powerwall. In one of the other forums, someone mentioned they turned off the breakers for the powerwall, and it seemed reset the powerwall to normal. I know there is a breaker labeled powerwall on my subpanel, but it didn't seem to do anything when I turned it off. I went ahead and tried shutting off the main breaker to my house, and everything went out. The powerwall did not kick in. My app continues to just show my solar going to the house or the grid. Nothing is coming or going from the powerwall. I've changed the setting from backup only to self powered, changing the reserve level, with no effect. The app just says the powerwall is in standby. I've also tried turning the actual switch on the powerwall off for a while and back on, with no results. I'll call Tesla at some point, but was hoping to get it solved without having to go through the hassle of the calling and then the waiting. Any suggestions?

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I hadn't noticed it, but for the past month, by powerwall has basically been doing nothing. No charging or discharging. Just slowing losing it's charge daily (now down to 43%). I only noticed this about a week ago, and thought it was the firmware, as I read on the Tesla forum of some erratic behavior for some people. I'm now on version 1.11.2, but still nothing from my powerwall. In one of the other forums, someone mentioned they turned off the breakers for the powerwall, and it seemed reset the powerwall to normal. I know there is a breaker labeled powerwall on my subpanel, but it didn't seem to do anything when I turned it off. I went ahead and tried shutting off the main breaker to my house, and everything went out. The powerwall did not kick in. My app continues to just show my solar going to the house or the grid. Nothing is coming or going from the powerwall. I've changed the setting from backup only to self powered, changing the reserve level, with no effect. The app just says the powerwall is in standby. I've also tried turning the actual switch on the powerwall off for a while and back on, with no results. I'll call Tesla at some point, but was hoping to get it solved without having to go through the hassle of the calling and then the waiting. Any suggestions?

Did you try all steps from page 11 of the manual: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/powerwall/powerwall_2_ac_owners_manual.pdf

If the Backup Gateway and Powerwall are both unresponsive:

1. Turn off Powerwall by setting its On/Off switch to the OFF position.
2. Turn off the AC breaker to Powerwall.
3. Turn off the AC breaker to the Backup Gateway (for whole-home backup systems, this may be a breaker inside the Backup Gateway).
4. Wait for at least one minute.
5. Turn the AC breakers back on.
6. Turn on Powerwall.

 

[yesngo]

Did you try all steps from page 11 of the manual: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/powerwall/powerwall_2_ac_owners_manual.pdf

If the Backup Gateway and Powerwall are both unresponsive:

1. Turn off Powerwall by setting its On/Off switch to the OFF position.
2. Turn off the AC breaker to Powerwall.
3. Turn off the AC breaker to the Backup Gateway (for whole-home backup systems, this may be a breaker inside the Backup Gateway).
4. Wait for at least one minute.
5. Turn the AC breakers back on.
6. Turn on Powerwall.

I actually called Tesla before I read your response, and they basically had me do the same thing, except they wanted me to keep the system off until the green light actually turned off (took about 15 mins). I turned everything back on, and they said they would monitor it for 24 hours and let me know

 

[eml2]

If the Backup Gateway and Powerwall are both unresponsive:

1. Turn off Powerwall by setting its On/Off switch to the OFF position.
2. Turn off the AC breaker to Powerwall.
3. Turn off the AC breaker to the Backup Gateway (for whole-home backup systems, this may be a breaker inside the Backup Gateway).
4. Wait for at least one minute.
5. Turn the AC breakers back on.
6. Turn on Powerwall.

When you performed step #3, does it mean that your whole house lost power as well?

 

[yesngo]

I only have 1 powerwall, so it's not a whole-home backup. As such, I don't have a breaker on the gateway, so they didn't ask me to perform step 3. Anyway, nothing has changed since we did it. They said the would monitor it for 24 hours and escalate it if there was no change, but I have not heard back. I'll try calling them now to see if they have done so.

 

[Valijean]

Yes this happened to me, the firmware suddenly realised its not good to have the batteries on 0% which mine, was so it topped itself up to 5%.

I've not had it doing cycles but i've noticed that :

The web UI says 5% battery and the tesla app (ios) says 0% still
The web wizard now will not complete and exiting the process the powerwall has stopped and needs to be started

 

[Tim_btt]

I had this problem too. II' in UK with solar only system.

I first saw it before Christmas and I contacted Tesla. They were great, came back saying that the fix wouldn't be ready until the next version of the firmware goes out. In the meantime they put a 5% reserve on my PW2.

This has since been raised to 7% and now it tops up to 7% from the grid whenever the battery state falls to 5%. The app on my android phone reads 0% when real battery state is 5%

 

[Ditchb]

Hi Tim, Thanks for the info. I never received my promised callback from Tesla so went through my installer instead. They have managed to progress things with Tesla who have talked it through on the phone and then escalated in internally.

End result is that Tesla want my installer to come out with a spare Gateway and to go through diagnostics over the phone (the installer not me) with tier 2 support. Shall await the outcome!!

I am getting 'normal' charging spikes where the PW2 is topping itself back up to the 'hidden' 5% however it is always when the battery depletes in a hurry (plug in car to charge or put on oven) that it seems to do this peak and trough. I personally dont think the firmware is slowing down the discharge as the battery comes close to empty, as such it is over emptying, recharging and looping a few times until it settles. But who am I to know.

Awaiting date for engineer so we shall see!!

 

[Tim_btt]

I am getting 'normal' charging spikes where the PW2 is topping itself back up to the 'hidden' 5% however it is always when the battery depletes in a hurry (plug in car to charge or put on oven) that it seems to do this peak and trough. I personally dont think the firmware is slowing down the discharge as the battery comes close to empty, as such it is over emptying, recharging and looping a few times until it settles. But who am I to know.

Hi Ditch
Yes my peaks and troughs seemed to have occurred when the powerwall discharges quickly - like when I plugged my EV in or switched on the heat pump. Almost as if it was over-shooting it's normal zero % and then got stuck in the cycle of discharged charging.

Fingers crossed but upping the reserve level to 7% has worked for me so far .

Good luck!

 

[yesngo]

They ended up sending a Tesla tech out to my home, and since my wife was home instead of me, I don't actually know what the problem ended up being. They were there for a few hours, and now it's back to normal. They must have made some tweaks to it also, because it now charges off my solar until 12 noon, then sends the power back to my home from sundown until the reserve level. This is actually helpful since my peak electricity charges are from 2pm-8pm. It would be nicer if you could specify the time it should stop charging (in my case 2pm vs 12 noon). Even better of course would be the ability to just charge overnight from the grid, which mine does not do, regardless of whether I have it set as self-powered or back-up only. It only charges from solar.