Realistic expectations

[charlesj]

My system was only partially configured by Tesla at installation in SolarEdge's monitoring system.

I have two SE inverters. Only one was listed for my SolarEdge monitoring site. Further, it wasn't until I plugged in the Ethernet that the monitoring received any data from even the single inverter. Zigbee was communicating to the black flat box labelled Tesla inside the house. No clue what data if any was actually getting back to Tesla. But, that inverter data was NOT getting back to SolarEdge.

I ended up calling SolarEdge and telling them that my installers hadn't added my second inverter. I then gave them the new SolarEdge site ID I had created using my SolarEdge installer account and asked them to move both of the inverters to the site I had created. That enabled me a lot more control over what I could see from the inverters.

I would avoid involving Tesla at all with changes to your SolarEdge monitoring setup. Telsa doesn't have any real engagement with SolarEdge as far as I could tell; either support wise or anything else. But, Tesla did threaten me with voiding the warranty if I made any changes to the system that did damage to the system.

With respect to the Powerblaster.. it sounds like the inductance coils for @buckweet1980 are only on your main supply lines and not on the lines coming from the inverters. For the Zigbee connection... what is it connecting to? Do you have a flat black box in your house that may be labelled Tesla or SolarCity? Or, is it connecting to the Powerblaster?

The powerline communication comments someone else made earlier involves an Ethernet cable from some device to something like a TPLink Ethernet-over-powerline adapter that then sends signals over the powerlines to another TPLink Ethernet-over-powerline adapter back to Ethernet and into a switch.

I made that comment as I think that is what is in my 2nd floor subpanel. It is inside the box, two wires into the 20A breaker my solar is connected to, then also two coils wrapped around the power cable going into that 20A breaker. No ethernet cable but have a PTLink repeater in family room to get internet to Gateway in garage. That doesn't have an ethernet either. Seems to work frequently or mostly.

 

[buckweet1980]

I have the little black box that Tesla gave me to connect to my network..

For solaredge, I opened a case to see if they'd help via their support portal.. I'd rather not deal with Tesla at this point.

 

[PazzoPower]

Yes, the tesla app gets the data about solar production directly from the inverters, which connect to the little black gateway box through zigbee. It certainly does sound like your system is only getting data from one of your inverters for some reason. The tesla app gets the data about how much power you are sending to or pulling from the grid from the power blaster device. But I don’t know how that device gets it’s data to tesla.

Then, since it knows how much power your solar is producing and how much power you are sending to or pulling from the grid it is able to determine how much power your house is using.


Yeah, looks like tesla needs to get both inverters to be reporting to your account. I suspect that the issues with the power blaster might be related to this. As I said above, it figures out how much power your house is using based on the solar production and the power blaster data. But since the solar production data is wrong then the calculated numbers will be wrong too.

I imagine that tesla should be able to take care of this after you call them.

I am only seeing solar output from the inverter on the app. I opened up my panel. I see the power blaster with the coil sensors on the main line in leads. but I don't see how the power blaster sends signal to the tesla gatway. has no enntenna and no communication cable I can see.

 

[power.saver]

I am only seeing solar output from the inverter on the app. I opened up my panel. I see the power blaster with the coil sensors on the main line in leads. but I don't see how the power blaster sends signal to the tesla gatway. has no enntenna and no communication cable I can see.

The antenna is on a circuit board inside the plastic housing.

 

[buckweet1980]

The antenna is on a circuit board inside the plastic housing.

I assume this thing is zigbee based?

 

[BrettS]

The antenna is on a circuit board inside the plastic housing.

That’s a possibility, but I feel like the metal electrical panel that the device sits inside would pretty effectively block any wireless signals. Especially from a small circuit board antenna.

Maybe that’s where the ‘blaster’ in power blaster comes from... it blasts the signal out through the metal box that surrounds it

 

[PazzoPower]

The antenna is on a circuit board inside the plastic housing.

Good news I called Tesla they fixed everything the power blaster serial number was wrong in my account so they fixed it now everything is working. It took me a long time to get a hold of somebody that knew what they were doing. But now I’m happy everything’s working great

 

[charlesj]

Good news I called Tesla they fixed everything the power blaster serial number was wrong in my account so they fixed it now everything is working. It took me a long time to get a hold of somebody that knew what they were doing. But now I’m happy everything’s working great

Do you have a name and number to share who that person was who finally helped? Or, you have to go through the all the steps to get to the person.

 

[GHTech]

Greetings,

My install of the 8.16 kW PV (1 SE Inverter) and 2 PW is next Tue. (Sep. 1st). If I want to use only ethernet and not Wi-Fi for connectivity, how many ports would it be? I know that Gateway 2 has one, and I believe the Inverter has one. Anything else?

Thanks,

GHTech

 

[BrettS]

So to make things confusing there are two devices called “gateways”. One is the big electrical panel looking gateway (or mini powerwall looking gateway 2). That will need an Ethernet connection.

Additionally there is a small black box that they also call a gateway. That box would go inside your house and get plugged into your network as well. Your inverter communicates wirelessly to that box through zigbee. That box sends the production data to the Tesla app from the inverter, but it’s technically not absolutely necessary when you have powerwalls because they will get that data through the big gateway.

However, if you also want to use the solaredge app to monitor your inverter and panel level production data then your inverter will need a network connection as well. It might be able to use the little black gateway for this (but recently a lot of people have discovered that Tesla isn’t passing this data on to solaredge like they used to). Alternately you could run an Ethernet cable directly to your inverter so it can get its data to solar edge. But that wouldn’t be done during the install. You would need to do that on your own after the install is complete.

 

[GHTech]

So to make things confusing there are two devices called “gateways”. One is the big electrical panel looking gateway (or mini powerwall looking gateway 2). That will need an Ethernet connection.

Additionally there is a small black box that they also call a gateway. That box would go inside your house and get plugged into your network as well. Your inverter communicates wirelessly to that box through zigbee. That box sends the production data to the Tesla app from the inverter, but it’s technically not absolutely necessary when you have powerwalls because they will get that data through the big gateway.

However, if you also want to use the solaredge app to monitor your inverter and panel level production data then your inverter will need a network connection as well. It might be able to use the little black gateway for this (but recently a lot of people have discovered that Tesla isn’t passing this data on to solaredge like they used to). Alternately you could run an Ethernet cable directly to your inverter so it can get its data to solar edge. But that wouldn’t be done during the install. You would need to do that on your own after the install is complete.

Hi BrettS,

Thanks for the info. All my equipment is going inside my garage, and I also have one of my mesh network nodes in the garage. This node has 2 ethernet ports on it. I could put a small switch on one of the ports, and have everything wired to that switch if more than 2 ethernet ports are needed. So, basically, I would need 3 ports (1 for Gateway - small box, 1 for the Gateway 2 and 1 for the Inverter), right?

Thanks,

GHTech

 

[BrettS]

You’ll definitely need one for the gateway 2. And potentially one for the inverter. The inverter connection is an either/or type thing. Either zigbee going to the small box gateway, which would need a port, or ethernet directly to the inverter. But if you don’t care about monitoring though the solaredge platform then you don’t really need a port for the inverter at all.

 

[BrettS]

One more quick note... tesla doesn’t officially support the ethernet connection to the inverter, so they will likely want you to set up the small black box gateway. (Although I have seen some posts from people where tesla didn’t even bother). So let them set that up when they do the install and then if you want to connect the inverter to ethernet (or just remove the small black box entirely) then do that after they leave to avoid any confusion.

 

[getakey]

One more quick note... tesla doesn’t officially support the ethernet connection to the inverter, so they will likely want you to set up the small black box gateway. (Although I have seen some posts from people where tesla didn’t even bother). So let them set that up when they do the install and then if you want to connect the inverter to ethernet (or just remove the small black box entirely) then do that after they leave to avoid any confusion.

Why doesn't Tesla "officially" support the direct ethernet connection? I had a 3rd party installer and they ran the ethernet during install. Said it was more reliable.

Wait - I actually think it was ethernet from TEG to the batteries. My gateway talks to my WiFi (without the small black box) and my inverter talks to my WiFi

 

[BrettS]

Why doesn't Tesla "officially" support the direct ethernet connection? I had a 3rd party installer and they ran the ethernet during install. Said it was more reliable.

Because the tesla little black box gateway does something funky with the data. The direct ethernet connection allows the inverters to talk directly to solaredge. Solaredge also sells their own zigbee gateway that allows the inverters to talk directly to solaredge.

However, the tesla gateway sends the data directly to Tesla. For a while it looked like Tesla also sent the data to solaredge so you could still use the solaredge app for monitoring, but lately there have been reports that tesla has stopped doing that within the last few months. I know that I couldn’t get data from the solaredge app when I had my inverters connected through the tesla gateway. But once I connected the inverters to ethernet it allowed them to talk directly to solaredge and I was able to get data in the solaredge app.

 

[getakey]

Because the tesla little black box gateway does something funky with the data. The direct ethernet connection allows the inverters to talk directly to solaredge. Solaredge also sells their own zigbee gateway that allows the inverters to talk directly to solaredge.

However, the tesla gateway sends the data directly to Tesla. For a while it looked like Tesla also sent the data to solaredge so you could still use the solaredge app for monitoring, but lately there have been reports that tesla has stopped doing that within the last few months. I know that I couldn’t get data from the solaredge app when I had my inverters connected through the tesla gateway. But once I connected the inverters to ethernet it allowed them to talk directly to solaredge and I was able to get data in the solaredge app.

I had edited my post right when you were posting. My inverter was already connected to Web because my solar install went first about a year and a half before PW install. I did not need the little black box because WiFi at TEG is pretty strong

 

[BrettS]

Wait - I actually think it was ethernet from TEG to the batteries.

Definitely ethernet there. The powerwalls don’t have any network capabilities at all... either ethernet or WiFi. There is a data cable that is required to go between the TEG and the powerwalls, but it’s not ethernet it’s some proprietary thing. Wireless communication between the powerwalls and the TEG is not an option.

They do usually push for an ethernet connection to connect the TEG to the internet, though, saying that it is more reliable, however, WiFi is an option for the TEG internet connection.

 

[getakey]

what's interesting is that Solaredge is reporting about 5% more solar production than the Tesla app

 

[zƬesla]

what's interesting is that Solaredge is reporting about 5% more solar production than the Tesla app

DC vs AC

 

[BrettS]

what's interesting is that SolarEdge is reporting about 5% more solar production than the Tesla app

It’s more like 3-4% for me, but I think z is right that it’s DC vs AC. It looks like the SolarEdge app reports DC production.