Tesla app not showing home usage when there is solar

[ozzo]

Hey all,

I have Tesla solar and no powerwall. A few weeks ago a tech came out to install my powerblaster so I could see grid consumption. At night, I can see accurate grid consumption. However, during the day, the solar generation matches the output to the grid (e.g solar would be 3.2kW and output to grid would also be 3.2kW).

I know that the way the app can tell how much your home uses is by subtracting what you output to the grid from the solar generation. If solar generation and output to the grid are the same, it shows your home is using no energy which I know for a fact is not true. Has anyone had this problem before and can share how they got it fixed? I tried calling into Tesla twice but we all know you gotta get lucky with the right tech with the knowledge to help.

 

[trautmane2]

I also have recently installed solar, powerblaster, and no powerwall. Your question made me take a closer look at my data from the last month. I now notice many (23 of 31) days where there are multi-hour stretches of 15-minute intervals with zero kW home usage. The zero stretches always occur during the daytime when solar is also being generated. Otherwise, I haven't found a pattern yet.

Let us know if you learn anything (I'll do the same).

I'm assuming the measurements are averages of point-in-time values over each 15-minute interval rounded to tenths of a kW.

Possible problem sources:
a) connectivity between powerblaster and the little black gateway box
b) something misconfigured on Tesla's end

My inverter is a Delta M8. Do you have a Solar Edge? Wondering if inverter to gateway communication somehow interferes with powerblaster communication.

 

[sleevemedia]

Same zero consumption during the day issue here. I was planning to chat with support about it.

As soon as my production exceeds my consumption, the Powerblaster's output is ignored, home usage flatlines on the energy usage page, and the three circle page shows all my production going to the grid and none to home.

 

[sleevemedia]

Called support. They said they're redesigning the energy section of the app. The iOS version should be rolling out, the Android version is later this month. She said the visuals are going to be different. Rather than filing a bug report, I'm going to wait for the Android update.

 

[trautmane2]

They said they're redesigning the energy section of the app.

That's good to know but this seems like a source data issue as opposed to an app "display" issue. Hard to know for sure ...

 

[NorCalSlrUser]

Did you do anything special to get the powerblaster? Tesla refused many times to give me one. Even though the electrician thought they have temporary shortage. The energy advisors just told me to buy something on Amazon.

 

[trautmane2]

Did you do anything special to get the powerblaster?

Kind of - but I think I just got lucky. Here are the details:

The install of my solar glass roof in northern Virginia (no powerwalls) should be done today (fingers crossed). Because I had read this thread in October, when the electricians arrived midway through my install I asked them about the power blaster. Their initial pull sheet did not include a power blaster. I told them (and my installation advisor) that monitoring was very important to me and asked if they could include a power blaster for me. There was an unrelated problem with the initial pull sheet, so the electricians had to return a second day with the correct parts. On the second electrical install day, they brought and installed a power blaster for me. I can't be sure how much my request and/or the fact that the electricians had to return another day anyway factored into the end result of getting a power blaster.

I'm very thankful for the info others have posted here since I would not have known anything about this otherwise!

The head electrician mentioned that Tesla was phasing out the power blasters and moving to a different solution. He did not reveal anything more specific than that, so it still isn't clear to me whether my power blaster was accidentally or purposefully omitted.

All of this being said, I have yet to see anything in the app since my install is not yet complete - hopefully it shows all the important data once things are up and running.

 

[trautmane2]

I accessed Tesla's energy API ( State And Settings ) for the first time tonight using this little code repo to get connected:
enode-engineering/tesla-oauth2

I pulled the 15-minute interval historical data that is kept for non-powerwall users using these API endpoints:

# use the products API to get your site_id
products_url = 'https://owner-api.teslamotors.com/api/1/products'

# use the calendar_history API to get the interval data
site_url = f'https://owner-api.teslamotors.com/api/1/energy_sites/{site_id}'

# query end_date needs to be UTC without offset
end_date = datetime(2021, 1, 30, 17, 45, 0, 0).astimezone(timezone.utc).isoformat().replace("+00:00", "Z")

history_url = f'{site_url}/calendar_history?kind=power&end_date={end_date}'

The calendar_history API shows that home usage is derived from stored grid_power + solar_power (home usage is not stored independently).
The zero home usage values I was seeing in the app and in the app csv export were not really zero, but were actually small values rounded to zero because the app only shows hundreds of watts (tenths of kW).
The API power value unit is watts, allowing you to see the small daytime usage that gets dropped by the app with rounding.

For the day I checked, the app "lost" 700 watts over 5 daytime hours.

I'm guessing this rounding behavior would explain the zero home usage values you saw too - unless you were getting zeros when something big was running like a dishwasher or car charger.

 

[ozzo]

I also have recently installed solar, powerblaster, and no powerwall. Your question made me take a closer look at my data from the last month. I now notice many (23 of 31) days where there are multi-hour stretches of 15-minute intervals with zero kW home usage. The zero stretches always occur during the daytime when solar is also being generated. Otherwise, I haven't found a pattern yet.

Let us know if you learn anything (I'll do the same).

I'm assuming the measurements are averages of point-in-time values over each 15-minute interval rounded to tenths of a kW.

Possible problem sources:
a) connectivity between powerblaster and the little black gateway box
b) something misconfigured on Tesla's end

My inverter is a Delta M8. Do you have a Solar Edge? Wondering if inverter to gateway communication somehow interferes with powerblaster communication.

I have a solar edge inverter.
I went to the power blaster and hit the reset button on it and rebooted the gateway (the little black box).
This caused the solar generation to be correct and show power going to the grid and home but the numbers going to the grid and home were reversed. So the solar was generating 3.2kW, 0.4 kW was going to the grid and 2.8kW was going to the home. I know it was reversed because at the meter it said "Received 2.8 kW" which means I am outputting 2.8 kW to the grid. I also double checked by turning on a 1 kW heater and the grid number instantly shot up to ~1.4kW.

This seemed like progress cause at least the numbers were right but just the grid and house consumption switched. Unfortunately, the next day came and everything reverted back to the original problem. I tried the reset of the power blaster again, and again the numbers were correct except the grid and house numbers swapped. We'll see if it again reverts back tomorrow.

I contacted CS a couple times and it really depends on who you get on the line. I had a ticket filed to tier 2 support about swapping the grid and house consumption but haven't heard back and it's been a couple days already.

 

[ozzo]

Did you do anything special to get the powerblaster? Tesla refused many times to give me one. Even though the electrician thought they have temporary shortage. The energy advisors just told me to buy something on Amazon.

I had put in a request to my energy advisor and he said he would see what he could do. That was right before Christmas 2020 so I didn't expect to hear back for a while. Then near the end of January, someone from Tesla showed up unexpected saying they were here to install a power blaster.

I think it really depends on who you talk to. Some CS reps say the power blaster has been discontinued for years. The guy who installed the power blaster said they were supposed to install it when they installed the panels but some installers can get lazy or forget. The guy also said they were out of them at the end of 2020 when I got my solar panels installed so that's probably the real reason.

 

[ozzo]

I accessed Tesla's energy API ( State And Settings ) for the first time tonight using this little code repo to get connected:
enode-engineering/tesla-oauth2

I pulled the 15-minute interval historical data that is kept for non-powerwall users using these API endpoints:

# use the products API to get your site_id
products_url = 'https://owner-api.teslamotors.com/api/1/products'

# use the calendar_history API to get the interval data
site_url = f'https://owner-api.teslamotors.com/api/1/energy_sites/{site_id}'

# query end_date needs to be UTC without offset
end_date = datetime(2021, 1, 30, 17, 45, 0, 0).astimezone(timezone.utc).isoformat().replace("+00:00", "Z")

history_url = f'{site_url}/calendar_history?kind=power&end_date={end_date}'

The calendar_history API shows that home usage is derived from stored grid_power + solar_power (home usage is not stored independently).
The zero home usage values I was seeing in the app and in the app csv export were not really zero, but were actually small values rounded to zero because the app only shows hundreds of watts (tenths of kW).
The API power value unit is watts, allowing you to see the small daytime usage that gets dropped by the app with rounding.

For the day I checked, the app "lost" 700 watts over 5 daytime hours.

I'm guessing this rounding behavior would explain the zero home usage values you saw too - unless you were getting zeros when something big was running like a dishwasher or car charger.

Thanks for this very helpful info!
It's weird, if I turn on something really high power like a microwave, it will show some usage like 0.7 kW but at night when there's no solar, I turn on that same microwave and it's at least 1.1 kW. There's gotta be some weird math going on so I'll check out the raw data later. But you hit it on the money that the consumption is calculated by grid export and solar production. So if your solar production is 3.2kW and you export 2.8kW, your home is using 0.4kW.

 

[Carbonfiber]

Officially got my pto granted yesterday and system has been on since yesterday. Not sure if I should start a new thread for this, but I do have similar questions that is related to this thread.

I was also curious on why my app doesn’t show the 3 circle icons (grid, home, solar). Did a quick search and came across this thread. What exactly is a power blaster and is it needed?

also I noticed my kw output went blank not too long ago (3:30pm). What exactly does that mean when that happens?

 

[h2ofun]

Officially got my pto granted yesterday and system has been on since yesterday. Not sure if I should start a new thread for this, but I do have similar questions that is related to this thread.

I was also curious on why my app doesn’t show the 3 circle icons (grid, home, solar). Did a quick search and came across this thread. What exactly is a power blaster and is it needed?

also I noticed my kw output went blank not too long ago (3:30pm). What exactly does that mean when that happens?

Once my installer got my gateways setup, with my filling out info, then the tesla app showed my info, including the 3 circle. Now to see, you have to click on the power flow button, which is not the default screen

 

[jjrandorin]

Officially got my pto granted yesterday and system has been on since yesterday. Not sure if I should start a new thread for this, but I do have similar questions that is related to this thread.

I was also curious on why my app doesn’t show the 3 circle icons (grid, home, solar). Did a quick search and came across this thread. What exactly is a power blaster and is it needed?

also I noticed my kw output went blank not too long ago (3:30pm). What exactly does that mean when that happens?

If you have solar only, and no powerwall, and expect to see consumption / usage, the powerblaster is needed. If you have powerwalls, there should be 4 (not 3 circles). If you have solar only and no powerblaster, all you see is solar generation, not home consumption.

 

[jhn_]

There can be a fifth circle with Powerwalls as well if you have signed up to be part of a virtual power plant with Tesla and your utility. It’s called Grid Services.

 

[Carbonfiber]

If you have solar only, and no powerwall, and expect to see consumption / usage, the powerblaster is needed. If you have powerwalls, there should be 4 (not 3 circles). If you have solar only and no powerblaster, all you see is solar generation, not home consumption.

I do not have powerwall. Do I need a power blaster and what exactly does it do?

 

[jjrandorin]

I do not have powerwall

If you want to see consumption in the tesla app, you will need to have the "powerblaster" product installed. Tesla will have to install it, and has gone back and forth on whether they even provide this any longer. Some people are told "no, we no longer have any", some seem to be told "lets see if we can find you one", from reports here.

Its possible that they didnt install it (more likely since it is now owned by a company that Tesla competes with directly (Generac). Its possible that they did install it but didnt activate it (unlikely but not unheard of, here).

Your options are to reach out to tesla and ask why you dont see consumption in the app, and push for a powerblaster, or to go with some third party monitoring solution.

 

[Carbonfiber]

If you want to see consumption in the tesla app, you will need to have the "powerblaster" product installed. Tesla will have to install it, and has gone back and forth on whether they even provide this any longer. Some people are told "no, we no longer have any", some seem to be told "lets see if we can find you one", from reports here.

Its possible that they didnt install it (more likely since it is now owned by a company that Tesla competes with directly (Generac). Its possible that they did install it but didnt activate it (unlikely but not unheard of, here).

Your options are to reach out to tesla and ask why you dont see consumption in the app, and push for a powerblaster, or to go with some third party monitoring solution.

Got it.

Called tech support earlier and Tesla said the power blaster was a promotional item that ended last summer. Are there any 3rd party monitoring that ties in with Tesla app?

 

[jjrandorin]

Got it.

Called tech support earlier and Tesla said the power blaster was a promotional item that ended last summer. Are there any 3rd party monitoring that ties in with Tesla app?

No, no third party app ties into the tesla app that I am aware of. If it were me, I would push back and say that "one of the reasons I purchased this is because I thought I would be able to monitor consumption as well as production. I was not told this was promotional, can you help me with this?" see if you can gently push them to find one.

You can always get a third party monitoring solution as well (there have been some discussions of various ones here), but it wont be shown in the tesla app.

 

[M3Solar]

I am currently waiting for PTO but everything is installed. They are now including a Neurio if you have a Tesla Inverter but no Powerwall. I have been assured several times by my tech that it's the new way they monitor consumption. I will obviously have to see for myself once I get PTO but I believe the plan is to still display consumption data for solar only, however it sounds like they mismanaged the transition from 3rd party inverters -> Tesla Inverters and ran out of Powerblasters before the transition completed. I've included a diagram that was sent to me by one of the tech managers that shows how they are setting up solar only systems with a Tesla Inverter now. Mine is in fact set up this way with the Neurio connected inside of my breaker panel box.