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StormWatch on in NorCal again! (September 2020)
- Thread starter jboy210
- Start date
Never seen a Power Wall set up but if you turn off the main, does Powerwall take over?
Also, do you have island mode enabled? I hear that island mode has to be requested specifically, otherwise the Power Wall will not boot up without detecting grid power.
AMPd
Well-Known Member
Are you guys getting any smoke from California wildfires? My area in Roseville ca was absolutely horrible due to a fire 20 miles away in west Sacramento.
I had both my AC and air purifiers blasting. Going to buy a 3rd dyson air purifier just for the extra peace of mind.
Yes the Powerwall takes over if the main breaker is turned off. (Just did an off-grid test right now and it worked as expected.) It's actually a little more complicated than that because my house has two main disconnects (one for AC and the other for everything else) but this all worked as expected. No surprises there.
I am not sure what "island mode" is, but it doesn't matter in this case because I've had grid power the entire time (except for the off-grid test). I didn't try to reboot the Powerwall during the off-grid test.
The problem is basically that some part of the Powerwall gateway thinks it's still in Storm Watch mode (or backup-only mode, it's hard to tell with full batteries). I'm familiar with this problem...we had to deal with a similar issue last October. At this point there isn't anything to do except wait for Tesla to fix it on their end. Compared to the people who actually had their power shut off, this annoyance isn't even significant.
Bruce.
PS. On the subject of smoke, we have a lot of smoke in the sky (so the sun looked orange) but the air quality isn't too bad because the smoke is pretty high up.
aesculus
Still Trying to Figure This All Out
The big contributor was the Bear fire up by Oroville. And then adding to it around 3pm was the Fork fire over at Gerle lake. Looked like 7:30 PM at 4PM. AQI was around 220 at my house.
AMPd
Well-Known Member
Which is unfortunate because the nice breeze could have been used to keep our AC usage to a minimum. Not that it matters really since our utility is not part of CAISO.
My husband went out for a walk and said air was smokey even with mask on. fire.airnow site was showing 100+ readings for our area. We’re valley so funnels down here and only 3mph winds. Checked the PurpleAir site’s monitors with the filter on for smoke. Oregon has some really high numbers. Low cloud cover and/or no air movement?
jerjozwik
Active Member
socal resident here, is anyone else having issues DISABLING storm mode? been trying for a few days and have a tesla energy support ticket open, but i am doubting there will be any new information they will be sharing.
I did...thanks @getakey for the reference to my earlier post.
Update: It's partial-peak time for me now, and my PWs now appear to be behaving as expected for Cost Savings mode at this time (PWs running the house, and what very little solar production we have is being backfed to the grid, currently about 85W). I conclude that Someone Fixed Something (tm) overnight or earlier today.
Now I just need someone to fix the sky.
Bruce.
Reality, Tesla enabled Storm Watch mode and caused Powerwalls to charge during Peak period, resulting in even higher demand on the grid.
As Historic Heatwaves Cook California, Tesla Activates Its Distributed Army To Save The Grid
As Historic Heatwaves Cook California, Tesla Activates Its Distributed Army To Save The Grid
AMPd
Well-Known Member
Honestly if I were a homeowner in PGE service area, I’d get a natural gas backup generator. Beats having to bake in the heat
careful with that. First need to see if natural gas lines are large enough to support the generator. If you have solar, PWs are much better option
Counter-example: My Powerwalls didn't charge during peak. They got the Storm Watch activation in the late morning and finished in the early part of the afternoon. Here's my Powerwall activity for Sunday:
The green line is the power to and from the batteries. Before about 1040, you can see the green curve (negative to show charging) mirroring the yellow solar curve...the Powerwalls were charging from batteries. Around 1040 they got the Storm Watch activation, so started charging from the grid at about 10kW, and finished around 1300, definitely before peak time. It's a little hard to tell, but about 1740 I disabled Storm Watch and the system went back to Cost Savings, so the batteries were running the house until they hit their reserve limits around 2030.
Bruce.
Storm Watch didn't make my Powerwall charge during peak either. What it was going to do was prevent them discharging over the peak which is why I disabled Storm Watch during the peak period. The first day of this I re-enabled stormwatch in the later in the evening and they charged up from the grid. Last night I decided to leave it off since I had about 40% left and I figured I could charge it with solar in the morning today. I didn't count on the practically getting zero production today. I re-enabled Storm Watch this morning as well but since Tesla had cleared the state the batteries didn't charge from the grid. So I wouldn't have been able to help the grid much today, fortunately the same smoke that reduced PV production also reduced air conditioning loads.
