PW owners, summer is coming/here. What is your reserve percentage?

[jboy210]

With summer it is now time for us to balance PW reserves versus A/C cooling and charging. What are people setting their reserve to?

We are at 40% so for 2 PW, 11.2 kWh. Thinking about going a little lower.

 

[getakey]

I don't need the extra rate arbitrage so I set a high reserve (80%) due to possibility of wild fires

 

[zƬesla]

Been at 35% the last several weeks

 

[h2ofun]

With summer it is now time for us to balance PW reserves versus A/C cooling and charging. What are people setting their reserve to?

We are at 40% so for 2 PW, 11.2 kWh. Thinking about going a little lower.

10%

 

[ucmndd]

20%. I’d rather sit in the dark than pay PGE one cent for peak rate electricity.

 

[BGbreeder]

20% since can recharge in a day.

 

[Enginerd]

30%
It would be interesting to make this a poll.
Ideally I'd like to program it as a function of time of day (night: hours until expected sunlight), forecast cloud cover, season, etc. But when I only have one number to manage, most of the time it's at 30%.

 

[miimura]

My setting is currently 40% because I don't have A/C and can't really use more than that in a day from 3pm-midnight unless I do something dumb like plug in a car. Maybe if I get a windfall I will finally install A/C. The refrigerant plumbing and electric circuit is already there.

 

[ptdusn]

10% thinking of dropping to 5%

 

[jgleigh]

0%. Actually drained them this week due to clouds, EV charging, and two ovens running. Charged back to 100% the next day with power to spare.

 

[Ben W]

20%, though this time of year it rarely drops that low unless I'm trickle-charging my car off it. (My car more often uses a NEMA 14-50 on a separate TOU EV meter.)

For the winter months in particular though, I wish there were a "smart" automated way to set the reserve to the lowest point where it could anticipate charging to ~90% the next day, based on weather conditions, day-of-week usage patterns, etc. In stormy winter conditions this might be 70% - 80%. In sunny summer conditions, 10-20%. This would give maximum reserve in the event of a power outage, while also maximizing cycling and minimizing grid usage.

 

[tfan2018]

5%. I don't want to pay any peak rates.

 

[EVRider-FL]

20% for me. I have 3 Powerwalls and 14.5kW panels, and I don’t use any grid power at this time of year. I can always increase the reserve when a storm is on the way, if Storm Watch doesn’t do it automatically.

 

[patrick40363]

50% for my 2 powerwalls.

 

[skepticcyclist]

I always keep my backup reserve at 60% all year round. In summer I will actually adjust my peak period from 4-9 to 6-9 to get two more hours of solar to the house without using battery. This way I get more solar going to the house and grid all day, using as little battery and grid for the house.

When we used to have the "balanced" option I tried to use the grid as little as possible for both sending and receiving.

 

[sunwarriors]

I usually just go with 40% and manage my use during peak (no AC, EV charging, etc...) at 4-9pm. On stretches of cloudy days, I raise it to 60-80%. I don't use the equivalent of Storm Watch (on Enphase).

I plan to overcool the house till 4pm and flip the AC off after. I net export so it's probably not going to be an issue either way.

 

[roblab]

20%. Used the power walls one time during the fires, when the power was off for weeks at a time. The power walls kept the freezer and refrig running so there was no spoiled food. We have solar, so the batteries recharge easily without help from PG&E.

 

[GJones]

30% year round. Haven't used a single kWHr of peak or mid-peak from PG&E with that setting.

 

[Electrph]

timely question .. now that I can charge from the grid and i switched to time based controls from self powered my reserve seems less important .. lowest it hits is ~ 72% from running exclusively on batt 4-9 .. then at 8am powerwall charges up to 100%

 

[tfan2018]

For export everything option, does the powerwall get drained down to the reserve percentage?