It's raining with forecast wind in California, and the Powerwall Storm Watch is not on. What a pathetic company.
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Storm Watch not working
- Thread starter Ulmo
- Start date
Storm Watch/Disaster Watch is governed by NWS ‘Warnings’. If there aren’t any for your locations it is not activated. Is there a literal storm warning? Thunderstorm Warning? What? Rain and wind doesn’t mean anything.
zanary
Active Member
Rain is NOT a Storm.
Please refer to the instructions found in your Tesla App it at this link to understand how Storm Watch works.
Note: it’s called Storm Watch and not Rain Watch.
Additional Powerwall Modes | Tesla
Really? Under what conditions do you expect it to turn on? Make sure you include how to do it for the entire country, not just your house
woferry
Member
Oh, come on, we're Californians! After 6 months we forget that water falling from the sky isn't a sign that the world is ending.
I'm finally realizing just how terrible winter production can be, where yesterday's overcast & rain meant that my PW never got more than 2% above its reserve, even with a 13kWp solar system.
Lots of hate for the OP on this thread...
Back in September the Seattle area had one of the biggest thunderstorms I've ever experienced living here for 15+ years. 50k+ homes lost power, the UW Huskies stadium lost power (the game was postponed), and a record number of lightning strikes were recorded. Our power stayed on but blipped multiple times as lightning struck. The Powerwall? No Storm Watch activation at all.
I called Tesla to understand how they determine under what circumstances Storm Watch should kick in as I was astounded that the worst thunderstorms in the region has seen in decades didn't trigger it. All I got was a runaround: "well it has to be a regional event that can impact large number of people". Clearly the storms we experienced met that criteria. The agent directed me to the support page that other here linked to, which has no definition of "severe weather". We talked for a few minutes more and I hung up with less clarity as to what exactly the feature is supposed to do than when we started. It was clear to me that no one really knows exactly how it works and my guess is that it's that way on purpose so that Tesla doesn't get blamed if something doesn't work right.
I really hope Tesla clarifies what exactly triggers a Storm Watch because everyone's definition is different.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weat...-state-triggering-delays-power-outages/531097
Strong line of thunderstorms light up Seattle skies, postpone Husky game
Saturday’s electrifying thunderstorms were highly unusual — and not likely to repeat any time soon
Back in September the Seattle area had one of the biggest thunderstorms I've ever experienced living here for 15+ years. 50k+ homes lost power, the UW Huskies stadium lost power (the game was postponed), and a record number of lightning strikes were recorded. Our power stayed on but blipped multiple times as lightning struck. The Powerwall? No Storm Watch activation at all.
I called Tesla to understand how they determine under what circumstances Storm Watch should kick in as I was astounded that the worst thunderstorms in the region has seen in decades didn't trigger it. All I got was a runaround: "well it has to be a regional event that can impact large number of people". Clearly the storms we experienced met that criteria. The agent directed me to the support page that other here linked to, which has no definition of "severe weather". We talked for a few minutes more and I hung up with less clarity as to what exactly the feature is supposed to do than when we started. It was clear to me that no one really knows exactly how it works and my guess is that it's that way on purpose so that Tesla doesn't get blamed if something doesn't work right.
I really hope Tesla clarifies what exactly triggers a Storm Watch because everyone's definition is different.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weat...-state-triggering-delays-power-outages/531097
Strong line of thunderstorms light up Seattle skies, postpone Husky game
Saturday’s electrifying thunderstorms were highly unusual — and not likely to repeat any time soon
zanary
Active Member
Can you like to the local NWS Alert that was issued for your area? That’s how Storm Watch is triggered. You may need to review the NWS alert types as well.
Pretty sure only NWS warnings do it from what I’ve seen. If other behavior does, love to see documented examples. Can’t see how this could be automated otherwise.
During my discussion with the Tesla agent NWS never came up, in fact he insisted that Storm Watch was trigged by humans who are reviewing weather 24/7 which is why it had to be "something that is regional and would impact millions". I found that assertion to be dubious at best.
At the time of the storm I didn't think to check any NWS warnings and the Iowa State archives, which self proports to not be complete, (IEM :: NWS Watch Warning Archive Download) gives me a "no results found" message when I search. I doubt NWS Seattle didn't issue anything given the severity and breadth of the storms while in fact they tweeted about it multiple times. NWS Seattle on Twitter. It is possible of course that whatever they did issue didn't rise to the level of concern for Tesla's system. If that's the case I truly question the value of Storm Watch.
At the time of the storm I didn't think to check any NWS warnings and the Iowa State archives, which self proports to not be complete, (IEM :: NWS Watch Warning Archive Download) gives me a "no results found" message when I search. I doubt NWS Seattle didn't issue anything given the severity and breadth of the storms while in fact they tweeted about it multiple times. NWS Seattle on Twitter. It is possible of course that whatever they did issue didn't rise to the level of concern for Tesla's system. If that's the case I truly question the value of Storm Watch.
zanary
Active Member
Here in California, NWS issues our warnings, and a few hours later we do see Storm Watch turn on. Elon has also indicated (on Twitter) that he plans to change the name, because of our Mandatory Power Shutdowns in California which is really NOt a storm.
That being said, Storm Watch was also issued for parts of Denver and also parts of Florida (is, Blizzard conditions, and I thin the hurricanes I recall).
Regardless, the action is turned on by humans once they see a NWS condition that warrants it to be turned on.
I think there are levels of NWS conditions, so it’s only the most severe NWS alerts that will trigger Storm Watch.
I’m curious what he plans to rename it to, since it is now used for Public Safety Power Shutdowns we have had in California.
There really aren't "levels". Each alert has 2 components: significance and phenomena. Significance can range from advisory to watch to warning. An "advisory" means something may happen, a "watch" means something probably will happen, a "warning" is something is actually happening right now. Phenomena are things such as a hurricane or freeze. How everything is implemented on Tesla's end aside only some phenomena likely warrant grid charging ("Hurricane" or "Extreme Wind" almost assuredly, "Air Stagnation" almost assuredly not) and you would want to only start grid charging on a significance level of "watch" as "advisory" is probably too soon and "warning" is probably too late. It's the combination of these two things that should be used to determine what triggers grid charging. How Tesla actually does it? Who knows.
https://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd01017003curr.pdf page A-39 has both the significance and phenomena lists.
OPPOSITE experience here. Mountain snow storm of nearly historic proportion with 3+ feet of snow in a day and 1/2. Storm watch triggered automatically the day before the storm (as it has on other occasions). We experienced over a dozen grid outages including one over 21 hours on Thanksgiving day with roads impassible (IE: no power crews) for almost a full day.
Powerwall Storm Watch worked perfectly and the system stayed online throughout without a single issue. Wish I could have said the same about our internet providers.
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JPP
Active Member
Funny you mention the whole ISP issue. Here in NoCA we are now in the 'new normal' of Public Safety Power Shutoffs. Last one lasted for 5 days. So I have 2 Powerwalls on order for January install (Tesla Energy is understandably slammed). When we lose power in our neighborhood, Comcast goes down in about 1 hour. Our local cell service (ATT) is terrible where we live, and in a day the tower loses power. thus no connectivity. I just ordered HughesNet satellite internet as a backup. Since I will have power, I will thus have internet even if Comcast and ATT are both down. HughesNet is running a major promo with $10/month discount, free installation, $100 gift card back. No data caps but 25 Meg speed only up to your monthly plan. I ordered a 20 Gig plan, which will run about $60/month with equipment lease. Not cheap, but I will have connectivity, iMessaging and WiFi calling.
Would love to get an answer to this. I still bet it’s based on NWS warnings. Anything lower would be useless and anything non-automated would be insane.
And the new name is supposed to be ‘Disaster Watch’ unless this is another Elon tweet that goes nowhere.
Anyone that thinks this is a manual process has little understanding of the scope of the issue and diversity of the nationwide weather landscape. Nevermind who would do this for international locations.
I agree that an automated system makes the most sense though it is feasible that there is someone reviewing alerts and making decisions. Regardless, having clarity as to what the feature does (and doesn't) do would make it orders of magnitude more useful.
Christmas Day, it’s storming outside, the power just went out, and I have 2% left in my powerwalls because NWS didn’t issue an alert for the worst weather Central oahu has seen this year. A couple weeks ago, storm watch was triggered by a NWS alert that turned out to be a nothing event. Why do we have to rely on the inaccurate weather modeling of the NWS, when I could have looked out the window and predicted the power was going to go out today?? Barely enough solar today to power a couple light bulbs and the rain is blowing sideways. Frustrating.
Will we ever get manual control to grid charge our powerwalls???
Sure could’ve used storm watch today. I only generated 2.8 kW of power from solar and I started the day with my batteries depleted. Thankfully, the power cuts were short duration, so the 3% reserve I set on my powerwalls got me through, although I had to turn everything off to conserve. Hopefully the worst of the weather is behind us...
Seems like a good reason to use a higher reserve, it would reduce your risk of depleting your Powerwalls during an ill-timed blackout.
Cheers, Wayne
Cheers, Wayne
When power is likely to go out, which is whenever it rains and has wind in California where PG&E is, and has been true three times this year alone.
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