Solar-only app now showing grid and home usage?

[Mardak]

As of a few hours ago, our Tesla energy app view no longer only shows the yellow solar production curve and now shows the 3 circles for solar, grid, home as well as impact and historical energy usage:



Not sure if it's a bug, and it's just making up data, but looking at yesterday's data, it shows home usage matching up with solar energy production with 0 from grid all day which is quite wrong, and historical impact all show 1000%+ energy offset as it's dividing by 0 grid usage. We didn't change anything with our solar/inverter setup today, so I'm a bit surprised by the change. We are just a few days away from 1 year anniversary of turning on the system, but that's probably just coincidence?

I believe others with only solar have been seeing the 3-circle view, but I thought that required a different electrical setup and something with Neurio? We did have to call Tesla Energy soon after PTO as the SolarCity branded black box gateway wasn't paired to our Tesla account. Maybe something else was missing and Tesla Energy did some backend update for a bunch of accounts today?

 

[trautmane2]

I believe others with only solar have been seeing the 3-circle view, but I thought that required a different electrical setup and something with Neurio?

I have a solar glass roof without powerwalls and get the "3-circle" view because Tesla installed a Powerblaster (which is the same as a Neurio) inside my main electrical panel. The Powerblaster reads from CTs around the main lines coming into my electrical panel and transmits the stats either directly or indirectly (I'm not sure about the path) to Tesla so that home usage data shows up in the app.

 

[Mardak]

Ah bummer. I'm pretty convinced now Tesla Energy has something misconfigured. Earlier I tried testing running the dryer, and there was a spike in home usage then drop when I turned it off, so it seemed like it was maybe correctly reporting. But now that we've charged the car at a constant 8kW for 30 minutes, the home usage is nowhere near that, so most likely this data is someone else's. I guess I'll file a service request…

 

[scottjoh]

I have a Powerblaster on my system, but, the data was wrong during the day. The graph for solar production looked fine. In the evening the From Grid looked correct, but, during the day when the solar was producing energy it was clearly incorrect. The meter would say I'm pushing energy back to the grid, but, the Tesla app said I was drawing still. The Home Usage graph showed the sum of the Solar Energy and From Grid. I initially thought it was a bug in the app and that it would correct later, but, after months it never changed. I took a closer look at the Powerblaster, googled information on it and the Neurio (from the kickstarter web page) and got a basic understanding of what it's doing and how it's doing it. Then I checked the wiring in my electrical panel and found that they didn't install it correction. My Powerblaster has four CTs, two for phase A and two for phase B. I found 1 wire that was going through the phase CT, one wire that wasn't going through any CT and the inverter wires weren't going through the CT at all. Fixed the wiring mistakes and now everything looks correct and numbers on the meter pretty much match what I see in the Tesla App.

 

[h2ofun]

I have a Powerblaster on my system, but, the data was wrong during the day. The graph for solar production looked fine. In the evening the From Grid looked correct, but, during the day when the solar was producing energy it was clearly incorrect. The meter would say I'm pushing energy back to the grid, but, the Tesla app said I was drawing still. The Home Usage graph showed the sum of the Solar Energy and From Grid. I initially thought it was a bug in the app and that it would correct later, but, after months it never changed. I took a closer look at the Powerblaster, googled information on it and the Neurio (from the kickstarter web page) and got a basic understanding of what it's doing and how it's doing it. Then I checked the wiring in my electrical panel and found that they didn't install it correction. My Powerblaster has four CTs, two for phase A and two for phase B. I found 1 wire that was going through the phase CT, one wire that wasn't going through any CT and the inverter wires weren't going through the CT at all. Fixed the wiring mistakes and now everything looks correct and numbers on the meter pretty much match what I see in the Tesla App.

And who installed and verified were correctly before they left?

 

[scottjoh]

The Tesla installers installed everything. Everything they did was first rate. Panels, inverter, conduit, disconnect box, everything was fantastic. Got it installed July 23, 2020 and it wasn’t until Jan 21, 2021 that I started seeing the data from the Powerblaster in the App. Before that it was just the single bubble for Solar Energy. With the three bubble view, then I saw the funny numbers for Home Usage and From Grid. Not wanting to waste my time on the phone with tech support I figured I’d figure it out myself and learn about the system. I’m an electrical engineer so it’s fun. My electrical panel is a mess of wires and there isn’t much room so I’m not going to blast the installers for screwing up. It was a simple fix after I figured out how the systems works and how the current transformers (CT) should be installed, what wires go through which set of CTs, etc. I am a little surprised that the voltage from only one of the phases is used and split to both the Phase A and B voltage inputs on the Powerblaster. This is different from the installation guide for the Neurio Kickstarter project. Mathematically they don’t exactly need the Phase B voltage. It’s always going to be 180 degrees out of phase from Phase A and roughly the same absolute value as Phase A. With these assumptions the errors should be fairly negligible. Now I would love to get access to the SolarEdge monitoring system. I’m sure that is going to require a call to Tesla support. Currently I am using the Tesla App and the SolarEdge SetApp phone app to get basic Inverter data (daily total, monthly total, yearly total and lifetime total). SetApp uses the QR code on the side of the inverter and connecting via WiFi directly to the inverter.

 

[h2ofun]

The Tesla installers installed everything. Everything they did was first rate. Panels, inverter, conduit, disconnect box, everything was fantastic. Got it installed July 23, 2020 and it wasn’t until Jan 21, 2021 that I started seeing the data from the Powerblaster in the App. Before that it was just the single bubble for Solar Energy. With the three bubble view, then I saw the funny numbers for Home Usage and From Grid. Not wanting to waste my time on the phone with tech support I figured I’d figure it out myself and learn about the system. I’m an electrical engineer so it’s fun. My electrical panel is a mess of wires and there isn’t much room so I’m not going to blast the installers for screwing up. It was a simple fix after I figured out how the systems works and how the current transformers (CT) should be installed, what wires go through which set of CTs, etc. I am a little surprised that the voltage from only one of the phases is used and split to both the Phase A and B voltage inputs on the Powerblaster. This is different from the installation guide for the Neurio Kickstarter project. Mathematically they don’t exactly need the Phase B voltage. It’s always going to be 180 degrees out of phase from Phase A and roughly the same absolute value as Phase A. With these assumptions the errors should be fairly negligible. Now I would love to get access to the SolarEdge monitoring system. I’m sure that is going to require a call to Tesla support. Currently I am using the Tesla App and the SolarEdge SetApp phone app to get basic Inverter data (daily total, monthly total, yearly total and lifetime total). SetApp uses the QR code on the side of the inverter and connecting via WiFi directly to the inverter.

How did you get into the SE setapp? I thought one had to have an installer email setup with SE for that access?

 

[bobby g]

The Tesla installers installed everything. Everything they did was first rate. Panels, inverter, conduit, disconnect box, everything was fantastic. Got it installed July 23, 2020 and it wasn’t until Jan 21, 2021 that I started seeing the data from the Powerblaster in the App. Before that it was just the single bubble for Solar Energy. With the three bubble view, then I saw the funny numbers for Home Usage and From Grid. Not wanting to waste my time on the phone with tech support I figured I’d figure it out myself and learn about the system. I’m an electrical engineer so it’s fun. My electrical panel is a mess of wires and there isn’t much room so I’m not going to blast the installers for screwing up. It was a simple fix after I figured out how the systems works and how the current transformers (CT) should be installed, what wires go through which set of CTs, etc. I am a little surprised that the voltage from only one of the phases is used and split to both the Phase A and B voltage inputs on the Powerblaster. This is different from the installation guide for the Neurio Kickstarter project. Mathematically they don’t exactly need the Phase B voltage. It’s always going to be 180 degrees out of phase from Phase A and roughly the same absolute value as Phase A. With these assumptions the errors should be fairly negligible. Now I would love to get access to the SolarEdge monitoring system. I’m sure that is going to require a call to Tesla support. Currently I am using the Tesla App and the SolarEdge SetApp phone app to get basic Inverter data (daily total, monthly total, yearly total and lifetime total). SetApp uses the QR code on the side of the inverter and connecting via WiFi directly to the inverter.

Would you please post a picture of the powerblaster, I'm only seeing the one bubble and I'm curious.
Thanks

 

[trautmane2]

Would you please post a picture of the powerblaster

Here is what my powerblaster install looks like:

 

[bobby g]

Here is what my powerblaster install looks like:

View attachment 651040

Thanks

 

[Mardak]

Here is what my powerblaster install looks like:

View attachment 651040

Thanks for the picture. It reminded me to take a look inside our main electrical panel, and unfortunately for us, there is no device inside nor current transformers to read from the main line. So the data we are seeing in the app indeed is quite likely somebody else's house usage.

 

[mktsl]

Here is what my powerblaster install looks like:

View attachment 651040

I am in similar boat. Initially it was showing always generating power. Even in the night. I swapped CT1 & CT2 and now it shows the solar production correctly. But show always pulling from the grid even the meter show pushing to grid. There are 2 more CT3 and CT4 with no connection. My site meter looks little different than yours, on the other side it has AC port that is connected to the solar AC I believe. Any help would be appriciated.

 

[mktsl]

this is how mine looks like

 

[trautmane2]

I am in similar boat. Initially it was showing always generating power. Even in the night. I swapped CT1 & CT2 and now it shows the solar production correctly. But show always pulling from the grid even the meter show pushing to grid. There are 2 more CT3 and CT4 with no connection. My site meter looks little different than yours, on the other side it has AC port that is connected to the solar AC I believe. Any help would be appriciated.

Sorry - I'm no expert but this is how I think my setup works. The CTs solely monitor input and output to the panel. The powerblaster/neurio then transmits that information to my Tesla gateway. Solar production is transmitted by my inverter to the gateway. The gateway sends home panel input and output stats along with solar production stats to remote Tesla servers. The Tesla app pulls stats back from those servers including derived usage stats.

Tesla's servers need to be configured properly for your home/gateway in order for everything to display properly in the app.

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend contacting Tesla customer service to see if the configuration for your home is correct.

There have also been many people here who have reported misplaced or incorrectly oriented CTs (which side is up matters). It sounds like you already played with the CTs a bit - be careful when you're moving those around since fiddling in that area of your panel can be dangerous.

I'm guessing the AC port is simply powering your neurio.

 

[mktsl]

Sorry - I'm no expert but this is how I think my setup works. The CTs solely monitor input and output to the panel. The powerblaster/neurio then transmits that information to my Tesla gateway. Solar production is transmitted by my inverter to the gateway. The gateway sends home panel input and output stats along with solar production stats to remote Tesla servers. The Tesla app pulls stats back from those servers including derived usage stats.

Tesla's servers need to be configured properly for your home/gateway in order for everything to display properly in the app.

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend contacting Tesla customer service to see if the configuration for your home is correct.

There have also been many people here who have reported misplaced or incorrectly oriented CTs (which side is up matters). It sounds like you already played with the CTs a bit - be careful when you're moving those around since fiddling in that area of your panel can be dangerous.

I'm guessing the AC port is simply powering your neurio.

Yes. I believe what is displaying in Grid actually is my Home use. The App is simply displaying Home = Solar + Grid. App shows Home use increases as the Solar production increases. So it always shows pulling from grid. I tried to switch CTs around with no luck. Customer support sucks...but hope they can fix it.

 

[mktsl]

Yes. I believe what is displaying in Grid actually is my Home use. The App is simply displaying Home = Solar + Grid. App shows Home use increases as the Solar production increases. So it always shows pulling from grid. I tried to switch CTs around with no luck. Customer support sucks...but hope they can fix it.

 

[mktsl]

I reached out to the Tesla support. It has been 3 weeks now with no updates. Every time I contact, they say "it is still under review. I apologize for the inconvenience."