I'm making this post to help other PW2 customers who might experience a similar failure with their PW2. The content below are all statements of fact. No ranting or complaining has been included. The one personal comment I'd like to make is this: I was well aware of the customer service reputation and resolution times when I bought my system in 2017. I just never thought it would happen to me....on to the story.
System Description: 8.7kW DC, Delta Soliva 7.6 inverter, Tesla Backup Gateway gen 1, single PW2, partial home backup. This was a Solar City/Tesla Energy installation.
Runtime: Continuous operation with no problems from January 2018 to August 21, 2020. Operated in solar self-consumption mode. Winter reserve at 33% SOC, summer reserve 70% SOC. Lifetime PW throughput: ~6.6 MWh
Failure: On Aug 21, 2020 at 4:45 PM, an abrupt PW failure occurred. There was lightning in the area at the time. I can only observe that we did not have any blips, flicker or brownout in the home during the storm. The solar continued to operate normally and the gateway was online and all network connections were good. The failure of the PW manifested itself as follows: At the time of failure, all energy flow to/from PW stopped. The displayed SOC went from 80% to 0% (instantly). The PW2 LED began flashing green indicating loss of communication from PW to Gateway. See attached images.
Attached images: 1) View from app of PW2 state post-failure. 2) View of power flows from app post-failure. 3) Energy flow and SOC during day of failure.
Service Timeline:
8/21/20: Attempt reset procedure from PW2 manual. No effect.
8/22/20: I called Tesla Energy support. They offer a slightly different reset procedure. Try that. No effect
8/26/20: I was expecting to hear from Tesla but they were not contacting me. I called back in again to find that my case had been escalated to L2 support on 8/23. They said the turnaround time is five days. Ok; I need to wait a few more days.
8/31/20: I was expecting to hear from L2 but they were not contacting me. I called Tesla Energy and found out my case had been escalated to a service tech visit and my case was waiting in a scheduling queue. They patched me through to scheduling and I set up an appointment for 9/3/20.
9/3/20: Service tech visit. After a few hours, the problem was diagnosed as a failed synchronizer. This will take about a week to show up in the local warehouse, then the replacement can be scheduled.
9/11/20: Check back on status of synchronizer. Still not arrived in the warehouse.
I will update the thread once the synchronizer replacement has been made. It remains possible that this is not going to fix the problem. If anyone could describe the synchronizer unit and its function I'd be interested to hear about it. My web searches on the subject have come up empty.
System Description: 8.7kW DC, Delta Soliva 7.6 inverter, Tesla Backup Gateway gen 1, single PW2, partial home backup. This was a Solar City/Tesla Energy installation.
Runtime: Continuous operation with no problems from January 2018 to August 21, 2020. Operated in solar self-consumption mode. Winter reserve at 33% SOC, summer reserve 70% SOC. Lifetime PW throughput: ~6.6 MWh
Failure: On Aug 21, 2020 at 4:45 PM, an abrupt PW failure occurred. There was lightning in the area at the time. I can only observe that we did not have any blips, flicker or brownout in the home during the storm. The solar continued to operate normally and the gateway was online and all network connections were good. The failure of the PW manifested itself as follows: At the time of failure, all energy flow to/from PW stopped. The displayed SOC went from 80% to 0% (instantly). The PW2 LED began flashing green indicating loss of communication from PW to Gateway. See attached images.
Attached images: 1) View from app of PW2 state post-failure. 2) View of power flows from app post-failure. 3) Energy flow and SOC during day of failure.
Service Timeline:
8/21/20: Attempt reset procedure from PW2 manual. No effect.
8/22/20: I called Tesla Energy support. They offer a slightly different reset procedure. Try that. No effect
8/26/20: I was expecting to hear from Tesla but they were not contacting me. I called back in again to find that my case had been escalated to L2 support on 8/23. They said the turnaround time is five days. Ok; I need to wait a few more days.
8/31/20: I was expecting to hear from L2 but they were not contacting me. I called Tesla Energy and found out my case had been escalated to a service tech visit and my case was waiting in a scheduling queue. They patched me through to scheduling and I set up an appointment for 9/3/20.
9/3/20: Service tech visit. After a few hours, the problem was diagnosed as a failed synchronizer. This will take about a week to show up in the local warehouse, then the replacement can be scheduled.
9/11/20: Check back on status of synchronizer. Still not arrived in the warehouse.
I will update the thread once the synchronizer replacement has been made. It remains possible that this is not going to fix the problem. If anyone could describe the synchronizer unit and its function I'd be interested to hear about it. My web searches on the subject have come up empty.
