I have been following the thread with interest. I currently have my panel/powerwall set in Balanced mode, with a 50% reserve, and version 1.44.3. My PGE rates for a 24 hour cycle are:
Off Peak: 12am-3pm
Shoulder (partial peak): 3-4pm
Peak: 4-9pm
Shoulder:9-12pm
Up to 48 hours ago. I was fine with my settings until yesterday my powerwall started discharging at 7:30am with a 61% battery capacity remaining. I called the Tesla help line and spoke to their Tesla powerwall technician. She and I were looking at the same powerwall behavior==discharging during off-peak.
Technician response 1:She started to inform me that was normal for the battery and that if we look at previous days you can see the same behavior----My response, No all previous days there was never discharging during off peak hours at 7:30am.
Technician response 2: Since your solar input is so low at 7:30am e.g. 0.2 kWh and your electrical need for home is 0.4 kWh, then your battery will discharge; My response, No my battery has never dischaged at 7:30am, is there a software problem?
Technician response 3: Its normal for your power wall to discharge to get down to reserve set level: No way, as we were discussing, the powerwall capacity dipped down to 60%, when it reversed and started recharging at 9am while on the phone. My response; Did you see that change in discharge to charge--I think there is a flaw with the software program?
After consulting with a Senior Technician, she decided to open a case and monitor the situation to see if this cycle repeats it self. It has been 48 hours and the cycle has repeated itself over the last 48 hours---e.g. discharging from 7:30-9am. Currently on the second day. It is 9:05am and my powerwall capacity is discharged to 61% and is displaying "hacksaw" behavior of discharging/charging to meet the need of the home at only 0.3kWh. Solar input to house is 0.2 kWh. No real sign of permanent charging during off-peak.
I hope the Tesla programmers are getting a good hard look at this software version and decide to make updates!. I am tempted to switch to Cost Savings mode but will wait to see how this plays out....
I have had "balanced" mode discharge during off-peak, which frustrated me also, but it was common. For my system this has been the case going back many software versions.
The description for "balanced" strategy when you click "Learn more" in the app says, "Powerwall will discharge during all periods, minimizing exports during shoulder and off-peak", but clearly says it will discharge during all periods. That leads me to believe the programmers will think it's working as they expect. I actually would have expected support to quote you that information, but service and support "knowledge" is a Tesla weakness IMHO.
My impression is the "algorithm" the programmers are using is making a prediction based on usage and recent solar production for the whole day, taking into account previous days usage/production, also based on PW SOC, and somehow automagically then predicting (right or wrong, and seemingly "all of the sudden" after having not done so before) that it can now discharge "more", possibly even during off-peak periods if it is predicting it can otherwise can cover all loads during Shoulder & Peak, in addition to some off-peak usage.
So in my case, I still use Balanced, but I also combine that with 3rd party software to automatically schedule and raise the reserve during off-peak and then lower it back to my target after my off-peak window, which seems to insure it doesn't discharge during off-peak. I wish this was built into the Tesla app.
PS: The 3rd party software I use is
@Darwin "Power Wall Manager" application for Smartthings, and there are other ways to do this if you're comfortable with a little scripting and setting up a service on a server of kind.