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Tesla Energy Plan / Virtual Power Plant (South Australia)

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I am in the middle of a support case with Tesla at the moment -- since I got onboarded to Tesla Energy Plan my battery has been sitting idle at 100% for the whole week, not discharging any energy at all.

Interesting experience with American tech support, but Energy Locals were much more helpful. Some lady in the Australian Tesla office tried to convince me that this is the way the battery should operate -- basically sitting at the side of my house doing nothing until there's a blackout, while I'm paying for the grid consumption o_O yeah, right...

For now I'm waiting to see if this is a glitch or they really want me to buy 10K worth of kit just to look at!

So yeah, YMMV, I guess.
 
I am in the middle of a support case with Tesla at the moment -- since I got onboarded to Tesla Energy Plan my battery has been sitting idle at 100% for the whole week, not discharging any energy at all.

Interesting experience with American tech support, but Energy Locals were much more helpful. Some lady in the Australian Tesla office tried to convince me that this is the way the battery should operate -- basically sitting at the side of my house doing nothing until there's a blackout, while I'm paying for the grid consumption o_O yeah, right...

For now I'm waiting to see if this is a glitch or they really want me to buy 10K worth of kit just to look at!

So yeah, YMMV, I guess.
I’ve had several dealings with the tesla powerwall call centre, which is usa based not australia based, and my only conclusion is that they all outright lie to avoid work. I have emails from the same person the same day giving two completely different excuses on why my clearly malfunctioning system was perfectly normal. Seems the lies are so rampant they don’t even remeber doing it anymore. The call centre guy even told me that a tech had reviewed my system and its all fine. I later found out that it had gone nowhere. The only solution is to harass them so much that it gets elevated to australian tech support, and those guys are incredibly good at what they do. Some serious knowledge with the aussie team and a brilliant attitude. It helps when the research centre is based over at Tonsley, and I’m told the americans send problems here that they cant fix. Maybe thats not true, but it came from tesla.
Oh and the best way to get it elevated to the right people, demand an immediate full refund from your original supplier as its not working as promised. They’ll elevate it real quick.
 
Look, some of the consultants are clearly just want to brush you off, others seem to care. Today I've been told that it's been elevated to Tier 2 (whatever it means), so I guess it's a waiting game.

I've been trying to get in touch with Australian tech support (or anyone, really!) for a while without success. Thee 1800 phone number they have for the Australian contact has answering machine. I once got a callback from the lady who told me that my battery is not supposed to supply any power to my house at all and only there in case of a blackout, hehe... that did not go down well.

My plan of action at this point is to demand my system being taken off Telstra Energy Plan as it was working perfectly well until it kicked in -- as soon as I get a chance to speak with anyone that knows anything!

I'm keeping the original installer option on a back burner if all else fails. Maybe I should involve them earlier, but at this point I'll probably wait to see what the NA Tesla people say.
 
I guess my biggest worry at the moment is that this is exactly how Telstra Energy Plan is going to work, i.e. this is not a bug. But in that case I'm really struggling to see how can anyone buy into it. Hang an expensive brick off the side of the house and pay for it + the grid so that maybe your milk does not go off in the fridge once a year?
 
I guess my biggest worry at the moment is that this is exactly how Telstra Energy Plan is going to work, i.e. this is not a bug. But in that case I'm really struggling to see how can anyone buy into it. Hang an expensive brick off the side of the house and pay for it + the grid so that maybe your milk does not go off in the fridge once a year?
Involve the retailer now if you want a faster response from Tesla. Tesla care about the retailers as they are the buyers. The VPP works as you are expecting, and I know someone with it.
Its worth noting though, I did my numbers with Energy Locals and the non VPP plan was vastly superior to the VPP plan - but like all things power, thats my circumstances only and yours may be different. You just have to model it up to find out.
 
Thank you for your thoughts, everyone! An update: last night the battery came back to life and started discharging. I am not sure if the call to the installer helped or Tesla NA finally figured it out. Either way, it's working.

A side benefit from this whole thing is that now I can compare the benefits of me being in self-powering mode, "no battery" mode and TEP VPP mode. I will wait for a couple of weeks for the VPP data to accumulate and then will crunch the numbers.
 
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I have to admit that what you first described is how I thought the battery worked: just as a back-up for when the grid went down.
Self evidently, if it pushed it's energy into the house when the grid was attached there has to be a failsafe cut-out for the grid - which is the reason a relative spent two years trying to get a 48 panel/48 battery system connected but couldn't.
 
I have to admit that what you first described is how I thought the battery worked: just as a back-up for when the grid went down.
Self evidently, if it pushed it's energy into the house when the grid was attached there has to be a failsafe cut-out for the grid - which is the reason a relative spent two years trying to get a 48 panel/48 battery system connected but couldn't.

Yes, any Solar PV or Battery system (or combination thereof) that is grid connected and has the capability of supplying power to the house if the grid is down must have automatic grid isolation, triggered if the grid voltage falls to zero.

Ausgrid recently did phase rotations in our street and replaced house lead-ins. I charged my PW2 to 100% the day before to prepare. The crew went through the standard Ausgrid disconnect procedure and turned everything off and isolated everything at each meter box which of course plunged our house into darkness.

I went out and chatted to the bloke and asked him to turn the PV and Battery back on. He said it’s standard Ausgrid procedure to isolate everything to prevent voltage on the line. I pointed to where he had removed the 3 service fuses from the meter box and said “if voltage is going to jump that you’ve got a much bigger problem”. He agreed and turned the PV and battery back on, and everything was fine.