Thanks @gpez. It's a SolarEdge SE7600H. I'll start looking through the manual and see what I can find.
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Surviving the PG&E test?
- Thread starter Boatguy
- Start date
Thanks @gpez. It's a SolarEdge SE7600H. I'll start looking through the manual and see what I can find.
Try "Power Frequency" in the "Active Power Configuration"
"P(f) – Power Frequency: This is used when frequency-based power reduction is required. This defines a linear graph set by two points. The inverter de-rates power according to the defined graph, until the frequency reaches the trip value and the inverter disconnects (the trip point is preset per country therefore does not need to be defined as one of the two points)."
"P(f) – Power Frequency: This is used when frequency-based power reduction is required. This defines a linear graph set by two points. The inverter de-rates power according to the defined graph, until the frequency reaches the trip value and the inverter disconnects (the trip point is preset per country therefore does not need to be defined as one of the two points)."
Xminus6
Member
So PW cannot be charged at night from Grid power to be consumed during Peak period?
Thanks for taking the time to break it down and write it out. So PW doesn't seem like it will do the optimal thing, which is to charge off of Grid and then sell back as much solar generation as possible. The idea of charging during Partial Peak (or Off-Peak as SCE calls it) and then consuming during Peak obviously gives less arbitrage but I supposed it's the second best option.
We have a 14.1kWh system but since I'm home during the day our consumption during solar production hours is greater than it was when I was in an office. So I'm burning some of that ideal solar generating time. They're all sort of screwing us by shifting the Peak hours anyway so I suppose we just have to maximize what we can at any given point.
d21mike
Active Member
Right you are on the shifting of Peak to further in the day. I work from home as well and my wife is retiring so not going to be creating a lot of credits either. Hoping to make enough extra to fill the batteries and a little extra to charge the cars. Working from home I do not use a lot of energy in the car. Two sides to working at home.
If you are in the USA and have solar, you cannot charge from the grid except during Storm Watch events. This is an artifact of the 30% Federal Investment Tax Credit that is available on solar charged energy storage systems. If you get a Powerwall without solar or you live in the UK or Australia, it will charge from the grid if it thinks it is necessary to power through the Peak period.
Xminus6
Member
I see. Thanks. Are the Federal credits still in play? So you can really only arbitrage between your early Partial Peak generation and your Peak consumption it seems. That’s rather counter to my system which was designed to maximize afternoon sun to offset peak hours.
Yes, Federal Credit is 30% through 12/31/19 and is 26% in 2020. I don't recall the next step after that.
Today, on EV-A that is true. It is arbitrage between Part-Peak and Peak. However, PG&E is pushing people into EV2-A which runs Off-Peak from Midnight to 3pm. So, then you will have arbitrage from Off-Peak to Part-Peak and Peak. The problem is that when your batteries are filled at noon, you only get Off-Peak NEM credits from noon-3pm. Any generation you have during Peak will still earn you max credits because your house will be powered from battery. My solar system is so small that I am production limited on my arbitrage about 5 months a year.
One other comment: the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) has a five year vesting period. The hope is that Tesla will eventually allow grid charging for customers who are fully vested. It would take a lot of rate arbitrage to earn back the 30% credit in five years, so I think for most people it's still more advantageous to get the credit.
I don't think the capability of grid charging rests on Tesla. It likely has to do with some kind of regulation. On the Tesla side, it's just software. If they really wanted to allow grid charging, they could have done so long time ago.
But, yes, as you mention, PWs are not meant to be profitable for the consumer through rate arbitrage as it stands. From our usage calculation, it pencils out to be about 10 years pay back period without incentives. In less than half that time, I expect much cheaper and larger Tesla Powerwalls (v3, v4?).
I'll probably invest in a PW once the payback period gets closer to being equivalent to the payback of PV. Whether that's from grid charging being allowed or cheaper PW.
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Yes, my point is that the "regulation" that is causing them to do this is just the ITC (they mention it on their web site). Given that Powerwalls installed without solar do grid charge already shows that it's definitely allowed under certain circumstances. I suspect that exporting from the Powerwalls to the grid would be more of an issue, but just discharging to satisfy the house load as they do today would not be covered by any other regulation or contract.
d21mike
Active Member
I have solar and power walls at my home in SOCAL. If I have a Power Failure my house is fully backed up. But not sure I would still have internet. It would depend on if my ISP is fully backed up, right?
Those in PG&E with the power outages, if you have power backup will you still have internet? If so, who is your ISP?
Those in PG&E with the power outages, if you have power backup will you still have internet? If so, who is your ISP?
When we've had power outages in Colorado, our internet has still been fine most of the time. If it goes down, I just set up a wifi hotspot on my phone and use that for internet. I've done that in the past and still been able to work from home during a 45 hour power outage.
Comcast/Xfinity has backup only for a few hours at best, so we lost internet each time PG&E blacked us out.
The Powerwall/Solar made sure we had electricity the whole time.
We switched to a MiFi = cell based internet, but that works only as a minimal setup for a whole house due to the speed we can get in our location and limitations of the device itself (number of clients<=14).
Xminus6
Member
For those of us in California that are being intentionally blacked out by the utilities the issue is that the blackout is so widespread that the ISPs are going down as well. If you’re experienced a local accidental blackout it presumably wouldn’t affect your ISPs switching station unless you live near it.
Exactly. There are also plenty of news stories about intentionally blacked out areas losing both wired internet and cellular services. As both rely on PG&E and have limited backup batteries/generators.
i can tell you my experience -
the moment the power went down comcast's headend went down as well - i have UPS on my network infrastructure inside the house and my cablemodem was still powered. something very bad happened in my immediate area with respect to comcast's network - there were nearby neighborhoods which were not part of the PSPS who also lost their comcast internet. in addition, it took comcast > 36h to restore service to my house past the point where power returned. so there may have been some damage to their equipment caused by the shutoff. i know in prior non-planned outages my modem was able to keep sync with the headend.
my backup internet - an ancient DSL line terminated in the nearest central office (~2mi away) - stayed up throughout the shutoff. but the CO is so far away that they may have never lost power and so their power backup may not have been tested.
cellular data continued to work throughout but i suspect my phone can see some cell towers which still had power. we were on the western edge of the shutdown zone which broadly ran north-south thru the east bay hills. i heard that in marin since the PSPS was so widespread that the battery backups on the cell towers started to fail and people were truly in the dark.
Ulmo
Active Member
Same here. My panels were installed 2016 and PowerWalls 2017. No PG&E for almost 2 days, and never lost power. Almost half a thousand days continuous since my last tests that shut it down.
Some weak devices require reboot, and most solid devices don’t.
The only weak link was the one utility that didn’t back up their junk. Comcast had a battery backup on the poles that lasted only a few hours. Everything else stayed on. Each utility that had backups (water, AT&T) stayed on. Our water district had to station generators only a week earlier to make this happen, and AT&T had to bring generators to a few locations.
Ulmo
Active Member
Not by owner choice. Tesla will only allow this if they deem there to be a “Storm Watch” worthy of preparing early.
In practice, that means PowerWall owners have to proactively manage before known power outages.
Brovane
Member
What probably happened is the Node got taken offline by the power outage. In order for you to maintain service the Node has to have some type of backup power. Usually these Nodes will have some type of battery backup for limited VOIP service while the power is offline. This is supposed to give enough time for a technician to be dispatched with a Generator that they can then plug-in to restore full service to the Node. What I suspect happened is that Comcast just got overwhelmed with the number of Nodes down because of these wide spread power outages and made a decision not to sent out tech's with a Generator. My Dad lives in San Diego and SDG&E recently cut his power and he lost his Cox cable service but within a couple of hours a tech rolled out and hooked up a Generator to the Node and service was fully restored. However SDG&E is cutting power to much less customers than PG&E so it is easier for Cox to keep up with the power disruptions.
Usually from the Node you there is fiber back to a hub-site that serves a larger area. These hub-sites are larger hardened facilities with UPS plus dual generators and at least a weeks worth of fuel on-site. However I know these wide spread power outages are really straining the telecommunications equipment to keep equipment online through these extended outages that are happening one after another.
Xminus6
Member
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