Tesla Added CTs and now Powerwalls are acting REALLY strangely

[hobapolis]

Hey all! This is a follow up to an earlier thread I posted about some issues I was having with my partial-home back up. Tesla came out and installed some hardware in my main breaker box and presumably I'm now providing electricity from my 2 Powerwalls to my non-backed up loads at night time. That's all well and good however I still feel like there could be an issue. For example, look at this graph of energy usage last night. The green is my Powerwall output, the blue is the home usage, and purple represents pulling from the grid.

I was charging my car at 20 amps last night and I fully expected to pull from the grid later in the night when the battery ran out (set to 10% reserve) but I didn't expect to see the battery stop outputting around 12:45 AM and then ramp back up. Can anyone help me understand what is happening? If the Powerwalls can output 10kW total why am I drawing anything from the grid until my battery runs out?

 

[miimura]

What mode are you using? Self-Powered? Time-Based Control?

If you are using TBC, the behavior is not that predictable until it has some history to establish a pattern.

 

[hobapolis]

What mode are you using? Self-Powered? Time-Based Control?

If you are using TBC, the behavior is not that predictable until it has some history to establish a pattern.

Self-powered since day one.

 

[hobapolis]

Adding for additional context

 

[hobapolis]

Here’s what it looks like on a non charging day. I really don’t understand where it gets the “from grid” number from as per this chart I’m not pulling anywhere close to 3.9 kWh.

Per my electric provider i was billed for 2 kWh when i have no idea why i'd be drawing any at all.

 

[jboy210]

Does your rate plan with the utility have differing rates? If so it may be the system trying to achieve the lowest total cost.

My system will sometimes power the house from the grid instead of the powerwalls since the cost differential is so low during the winter. And in the high difference months does everything it can to avoid using the grid power.

 

[jjrandorin]

Does your rate plan with the utility have differing rates? If so it may be the system trying to achieve the lowest total cost.

My system will sometimes power the house from the grid instead of the powerwalls since the cost differential is so low during the winter. And in the high difference months does everything it can to avoid using the grid power.

It doesnt do that on self powered mode. Self powered is not supposed to use any algorithms at all about times to charge or not charge, etc (and doesnt for me).

Usualluy, inconsistencies like this come down to CT placement, and I am no expert on that so dont have anything I can add to the conversation there, other than to say in my case, self powered mode works as I expect, powering my home until it gets to the reserve if there is no solar, or not enough solar to power the home.

 

[jboy210]

It doesnt do that on self powered mode. Self powered is not supposed to use any algorithms at all about times to charge or not charge, etc (and doesnt for me).

Usualluy, inconsistencies like this come down to CT placement, and I am no expert on that so dont have anything I can add to the conversation there, other than to say in my case, self powered mode works as I expect, powering my home until it gets to the reserve if there is no solar, or not enough solar to power the home.

Mine is self-powered and does this. It was different a year ago before the new UI which took away some of our controls. Back then Self-powered was use battery down to reserve.

 

[hobapolis]

It doesnt do that on self powered mode. Self powered is not supposed to use any algorithms at all about times to charge or not charge, etc (and doesnt for me).

Usualluy, inconsistencies like this come down to CT placement, and I am no expert on that so dont have anything I can add to the conversation there, other than to say in my case, self powered mode works as I expect, powering my home until it gets to the reserve if there is no solar, or not enough solar to power the home.

Yeah i feel like it _has_ to be related to the CTs but I cannot be 100% sure. I will take a photo of the newly-installed CTs and post in the thread in an hour or so but I also don't know enough about the placement to know whether or not they placed them properly though I assumed they would have since they didn't install them at all on the initial PW/PV installation.

 

[hobapolis]

Mine is self-powered and does this. It was different a year ago before the new UI which took away some of our controls. Back then Self-powered was use battery down to reserve.

This is lame.

 

[jboy210]

This is lame.

I was a bit shocked to see the behavior, but my bills were lower so...

I also have another complicating factor of being on a Community Energy (EBCE) that adds another layer between me and the power company (PG&E).

I am sort of tempted to select the Go Off-grid option and see if that would change the behavior back to pre-update, but ...

 

[hobapolis]

I am sort of tempted to select the Go Off-grid option and see if that would change the behavior back to pre-update, but ...

I somehow lost the go-of-grid option

 

[jboy210]

I somehow lost the go-of-grid option

It is not on the main page when you scroll down?

 

[miimura]

Try rebooting your Gateway.

There is no good reason for Self-Powered to stop powering your house when there is still energy above your Reserve. It should only stop charging or discharging for a short period (< 5 minutes) when installing a software update.

In addition, whatever it is displaying is indicative of the CT readings. If you had consumption that the CTs couldn't see, then Tesla charting would be fine and the utility meter would be recording something different. If you can get interval data, at least hourly, from your utility, you should compare that to the Tesla data.

 

[hobapolis]

Try rebooting your Gateway.

There is no good reason for Self-Powered to stop powering your house when there is still energy above your Reserve. It should only stop charging or discharging for a short period (< 5 minutes) when installing a software update.

In addition, whatever it is displaying is indicative of the CT readings. If you had consumption that the CTs couldn't see, then Tesla charting would be fine and the utility meter would be recording something different. If you can get interval data, at least hourly, from your utility, you should compare that to the Tesla data.

How does one reboot the gateway? With the <sorry> long stick in the hole to hit the "restart " button that's buried in there?

I can get hourly data easily from my utility. The funny thing Tesla app shows MORE being pulled from the grid than my utility does with makes **NO** sense!

 

[hobapolis]

It is not on the main page when you scroll down?

Nope. No idea why. Tesla doesn't know either.

 

[miimura]

How does one reboot the gateway? With the <sorry> long stick in the hole to hit the "restart " button that's buried in there?

I can get hourly data easily from my utility. The funny thing Tesla app shows MORE being pulled from the grid than my utility does with makes **NO** sense!

Yes, the Restart button.
I would pick a recent day and download the data from Tesla and your utility and compare the Grid quantities. Open a case with Tesla and present the data. They should be able to fix it. If your utility was showing more usage, there would be the possibility of usage that is not measured by Tesla. However, if Tesla always shows more usage, then it must be a configuration issue.

 

[hobapolis]

then it must be a configuration issue.

Agreed. I have a case with Tesla however I haven't been able to figure out how to send them data such as you describe. I have all of it just ready to send!

 

[hobapolis]

UPDATE from a friend at Tesla:

"found the issue, your neurio has terrible connection to the gateway and it’s causing the gateway to get confused by what is actually going from and to the site so to prevent an energy overload, it just lets the grid take over. it’s a safety thing."

They're going to schedule a site visit for me to hardwire

 

[miimura]

UPDATE from a friend at Tesla:

"found the issue, your neurio has terrible connection to the gateway and it’s causing the gateway to get confused by what is actually going from and to the site so to prevent an energy overload, it just lets the grid take over. it’s a safety thing."

They're going to schedule a site visit for me to hardwire

This is not at all surprising if you have a remote Neurio in your main panel trying to communicate with the Gateway 2 to provide your grid draw measurement.