Mine didnt stormwatch charge during peak time either, but that wont stop either blogs from reporting on it.
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StormWatch on in NorCal again! (September 2020)
- Thread starter jboy210
- Start date
Sorry, that was me trolling, the article was praising Power Wall Storm Watch mode.
BTW, looks like with the inland states cooling from the surge of cold, no more power emergencies in the region. I plan to keep my A/C off this week and weekend.
Looking at the CAISO demand charts, storm watch should have really started charging a little before 0800, could have charged at a slower rate to be grid friendly - or program to complete charging around noon. Sometime between 1200 and 1400, the demand starts to climb rapidly and utilities are stressed to keep up. Well, that is for now... with more battery storage planned in Cali, it will get subsequently easier to keep pace.
Hm... no mention of California... could have come in useful (and profitable) the last 2 weeks...
Tesla Energy: New Autobidder Product Can Put Cash Your Pocket
ConnectedSolutions | Tesla
Tesla Energy: New Autobidder Product Can Put Cash Your Pocket
ConnectedSolutions | Tesla
Sorry, that was me trolling, the article was praising Power Wall Storm Watch mode.
BTW, looks like with the inland states cooling from the surge of cold, no more power emergencies in the region. I plan to keep my A/C off this week and weekend.
Same here in the Bay Area. 40 degree drop in 1 day. Nice but a tad bit smoky.
Knowing that I can top up then export peak period solar production (thus sell @ peak rate but use none) changes the economics of "4 kW solar+1 PW2" for the house but still not there yet. My levelized cost of energy over 20 years, assuming replacing the inverter once and the PW2 and 6% cost of money, would be $0.23 a kWh. In NV, we get 20 years of 75% retail and my est is earning $0.076 a kWh.
On the plus side, t looks like this system can support my house + 1 EV + provide backup power.
On the plus side, t looks like this system can support my house + 1 EV + provide backup power.
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It's hard to make the economics for Powerwalls work, even with usurious PG&E rates here in NorCal. And for backup power, it's hard to beat a generator for whole house backup. Obviously if you have a blackout and it's been smoky and you don't have much power stored, it's an issue. But it's also a problem in stormy weather as well.
I think the PW's are more like a UPS than true whole house backup power. But even if the integration was 10X better than what Tesla has built so far, the cost effectiveness is hard to make work compared with a generator alone.
I think the PW's are more like a UPS than true whole house backup power. But even if the integration was 10X better than what Tesla has built so far, the cost effectiveness is hard to make work compared with a generator alone.
I agree that from a pure economic stand point, it can be hard to justify (sometimes depending on utilities and state/local incentives,) and a generator can often be more cost-effective. And, its most obvious, measurable economic benefit of allowing some load shifting to avoid peak charges (or collect money from a utility, as some utility programs offer) is in conflict with its benefit as a backup - the lower the PWs run to shift loads, the less initially available in an outage.
But it does have some benefits over generators. The big one to me is there is no need to rely on anything off property or to stockpile fuel locally. And, while generation can be an issue in stormy weather, my sense is that this one is mitigated both by storm watch (for major events, like hurricanes, and hopefully blizzards) and the option to use backup-only. Also, often, the storm isn't present for too long, and clearer skies will re-emerge during the potential extended outage.
With 1 PW and partial-home backup, I can see the comparison to a large UPS as being more reasonable. But, with multiple PWs and a whole-home backup configuration, to me that is exactly what it is. And just like a generator, it has some limits and the load needs to be managed appropriately (or enough money spent to have a large enough capacity.) As I said above, I agree on the economics not being as good as generators, but that doesn't change what its capabilities are.
The economics for PWs work with PG&E. Here's my logic. If you are going to get some type of backup, then compare delta price of PWs versus generator. In my case, the delta was ~$5K. The payback from rate arbitrage is less than 5 years and that does not include any generator maintenance or operational costs. So PWs have an ROI everyday. Whereas, you can buy a generator and never use it
That definitely makes sense as a way to look at it. My only comment would be that using it to arbitrage rates potentially reduces its usefulness for backup because you might be caught with well less than 100% charge. Of course, as I know a number of you are doing in CA, you can increase the reserve where the risk of an outage increases, but that is not always known. So the generator comparison should take that into account. It does sound like it still makes economic sense given your rates and usage - just pointing out the interesting tension that exists between the two ways of using the PW, which is different from a generator.
In my area, it definitely makes no sense from a pure economic standpoint because there are no TOU rates. So for me it was about having backup power (and taking advantage of great state incentives,) though I also continue to anticipate TOU rates will come into play at some point.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
Man I am feeling sorry and somewhat worried about what has been going on down there lately with fires, power, etc. Hearing from friends and relatives in the bay area and seeing photos of those orange dark skies in the middle of the day is really unusual. Then I hear from the people who bought my home in San Ramon that their hazard insurance has TRIPLED in just the last 3 years. That's terrible. I hope things get better.
Worse case is outage happens at sunset. However, I can easily make it through the night with 33% reserve (3 PWs). If outage occurs anytime before sunset, you have solar available. There maybe some situations where you need to manage load, but I cannot see a scenario where the PWs + solar would not provide the power I need for many days in a row
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
A real bummer, and some of it is so bad that it has been blowing all the way over the Sierras and into the Reno / Sparks area for the last week. Probably not as bad as in your area, yet for several days I have not been able to see the mountains in the background about 5 miles away. First time I ever observed that in the many years I've been up here.
aesculus
Still Trying to Figure This All Out
Looking at this am's purple air map you are as bad or worse then we are. Sorry for sharing our poor air with you.
Unless "peak" is different in Nevada than it is in California, you wont be exporting much power during "peak" rates.
NV Energy peak is still 1pm-7pm. I do see it shifting to 4pm-9pm eventually, which will actually be good news for my precooling strategy.
I noticed you didn’t set the option for adjusting for the wood fire smoke factor on their site. Use LRAPA or the other setting mentioned on the below article. It makes a difference.
Understanding PurpleAir vs. AirNow.gov Measurements of Wood Smoke Pollution
The Airnow fire and smoke site factors it into its map results so no further action needed.
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aesculus
Still Trying to Figure This All Out
Yeah. I don't like the LRAPA.
But in the article you posted this statement appears:
It does not shift it anywhere as much as LRAPA when the numbers are so large as they are now.
All in all the air quality sucks.
