Tesla Solar in Houston & Surrounding Area’s

[Jones1]

Tesla Electric
Tesla Texas VPP
Update.

I’m noticing on the night before or early morning. On days when the grid might have an event or struggle to keep up with demand.
My Powerwall will charge from grid at the lower rate. Then pay me higher later in the day. Tesla Energy Autobidder or Opticaster software is very adaptive to the predicted weather or demand.
Sometimes it sucks. Storm watch and VPP. May charge from the grid and it’s not needed. But I rather be caught with it than without it. . I haven’t went without electricity at my home. Since I got Solar and PW installed.

Opticaster​

Opticaster is Tesla’s intelligent software designed to maximize economic benefits and sustainability objectives for distributed energy resources. As the fundamental machine learning and optimization engine for Tesla energy software, it forecasts and optimizes energy in real-time. Facility managers, business owners and renewable developers use Opticaster to reduce energy spend, increase renewable energy consumption and deliver clean power to the grid during times of need.

 

[DrewHou]

Not available for me yet.

Charge on Solar | Tesla Support

With Charge on Solar, your Tesla vehicle can charge using only excess solar energy produced by your solar system. Learn more about using the Tesla app to set Charge on Solar limits and more.

www.tesla.com

Yeah being on FSD beta means I am not likely to see the update on my car to .26 anytime soon. I still can’t get FSDb 11.4 either though. waiting game continues but love seeing so much movement lately.

 

[wiltoking]

Not available for me yet.

Charge on Solar | Tesla Support

With Charge on Solar, your Tesla vehicle can charge using only excess solar energy produced by your solar system. Learn more about using the Tesla app to set Charge on Solar limits and more.

www.tesla.com

Same, still waiting for updates to the required software versions. Still, right now in summer, the "leftover" solar is pretty scarce. Basically, only between 9a-noon, there's a 10 kWh surplus that I'm able to export. This would be on the weekends when it's plugged in at home during the day. Wish the house could've supported more panels lol! At least the one PW is surviving with AC non-stop thru the evening until Nights-Free kicks in, usually only loses 40%-50%.

 

[DrewHou]

Same, still waiting for updates to the required software versions. Still, right now in summer, the "leftover" solar is pretty scarce. Basically, only between 9a-noon, there's a 10 kWh surplus that I'm able to export. This would be on the weekends when it's plugged in at home during the day. Wish the house could've supported more panels lol! At least the one PW is surviving with AC non-stop thru the evening until Nights-Free kicks in, usually only loses 40%-50%.

Nice, I am seeing roughly the same thing in my home with two powerwalls. I may hit 40% by the time free nights kick in for me on a cloudy-ish day. Below are some details for anyone still doing the math or in the future, if free nights will work for them.

Two powerwalls with 9.2kw solar (mostly north facing)
3300ish sq ft home about 5 years old
5 ton AC unit runs at 3,800w with fan
Running AC between 68 and 70 degrees

 

[Jones1]

Nice, I am seeing roughly the same thing in my home with two powerwalls. I may hit 40% by the time free nights kick in for me on a cloudy-ish day. Below are some details for anyone still doing the math or in the future, if free nights will work for them.

Two powerwalls with 9.2kw solar (mostly north facing)
3300ish sq ft home about 5 years old
5 ton AC unit runs at 3,800w with fan
Running AC between 68 and 70 degrees

“Running AC between 68 and 70 degrees”

Turn it up to 74-75 and get some fans.
I’m the only one of my coworkers that has my thermostat set in the 70’s. My coworkers run there’s in the 60’s too.

 

[DrewHou]

Turn it up to 74-75 and get some fans.
I’m the only one of my coworkers that has my thermostat set in the 70’s. My coworkers run there’s in the 60’s too.

Yeah I used to set it around that before solar and always felt to warm. Now that I have solar I can be nice and cool and still not pay a power bill. To me 74 feels good until I get up doing something and then suddenly I’m sweating .

What always shocked me was when they would say AC should never be set more than 20 degrees lower than outside… that means I would have it in the 80s this month. Noppppeeeeeeee I would build out another patio roof for more solar panels before I did that.

 

[wiltoking]

Nice, I am seeing roughly the same thing in my home with two powerwalls. I may hit 40% by the time free nights kick in for me on a cloudy-ish day. Below are some details for anyone still doing the math or in the future, if free nights will work for them.

Two powerwalls with 9.2kw solar (mostly north facing)
3300ish sq ft home about 5 years old
5 ton AC unit runs at 3,800w with fan
Running AC between 68 and 70 degrees

One powerwall with 5.6kW solar (east/west, peaks at 4.0 kW)
1800is sq ft home about 3 years old
2 ton AC unit runs at 2,500w with fan
Running AC at 78

Crazy that you can hit those temps tho, we're in a supposedly energy-efficient home but the builder might have undersized the AC system with a 2-ton unit. AC right now manages to keep most of the home cool except for the two east-facing rooms. This seems to be a common problem for the whole neighborhood. Dunno if I could ever hit 70 degrees though lol and not because wife makes me turn on the heat if it drops below 71!

 

[njphilhou]

PTO application got rejected. Also indicated I am exporting which does not make sense, since the PTO is turned off. But when I checked in the app it shows I export to grid 0.1-0.2KW (extreme minor) everyday. They should be thankful for the minor export for free

 

[wiltoking]

PTO application got rejected. Also indicated I am exporting which does not make sense, since the PTO is turned off. But when I checked in the app it shows I export to grid 0.1-0.2KW (extreme minor) everyday. They should be thankful for the minor export for free View attachment 957050

Shame, sounds like Tesla screwed up the information they sent CEP. Did you review your project documents when it was originally designed? Because changes during installation don't seem to be verified by CEP at all. At least they can't begin charging you for your loan until you get PTO.

On a good note, just got my $300 USD self-referral check from Tesla, completely forgot it was a thing haha

 

[DrewHou]

One powerwall with 5.6kW solar (east/west, peaks at 4.0 kW)
1800is sq ft home about 3 years old
2 ton AC unit runs at 2,500w with fan
Running AC at 78

Crazy that you can hit those temps tho, we're in a supposedly energy-efficient home but the builder might have undersized the AC system with a 2-ton unit. AC right now manages to keep most of the home cool except for the two east-facing rooms. This seems to be a common problem for the whole neighborhood. Dunno if I could ever hit 70 degrees though lol and not because wife makes me turn on the heat if it drops below 71!

I think the main reason I can hit those temps are two fold. One being I had smart honeycomb shades installed on all my windows that didn’t have shutters so they close and open as the sun moves over the house. Secondly and most importantly I assume is at night I supercool the house on the free grid energy so when the sun comes up the house is well below my desired temp. Which that also helps with keeping my powerwalls at 100% for most of the day.

I’m still debating adding solar screens to the windows on the outside too… idk I need to get a quote and see how expensive that is.

 

[phsoccer]

Not available for me yet.

Charge on Solar | Tesla Support

With Charge on Solar, your Tesla vehicle can charge using only excess solar energy produced by your solar system. Learn more about using the Tesla app to set Charge on Solar limits and more.

www.tesla.com

I just checked and my car and Powerwalls need to be updated. I have not tried before but is it difficult to force the Powerwalls to update? I know with the car I just have to wait.

 

[Jones1]

I just checked and my car and Powerwalls need to be updated. I have not tried before but is it difficult to force the Powerwalls to update? I know with the car I just have to wait.

I thought the PW gets updated as the Tesla app gets updated. Meaning they push the update to it after the app. Not sure.
Tesla probably pushes the update to the PW. Whenever they are ready.

 

[phsoccer]

June 23rd ending.

I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever get a bill. That is the one irritant I have with Tesla Electric. The bill just seems to be random as to when they send it to me. It has been a week since the last day of my monthly billing cycle and still no bill.

 

[Jones1]

I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever get a bill. That is the one irritant I have with Tesla Electric. The bill just seems to be random as to when they send it to me. It has been a week since the last day of my monthly billing cycle and still no bill.

So I signed up in December of last year. I believe I didn’t receive a bill to February. They didn’t take my money out of my account. They waited until after the next billing cycle. To take the withdrawal from my debit or checking account. It was confusing as hell. But it was great not paying for 3 months.

 

[DrewHou]

So my area is experiencing a fiber outage with AT&T. I thought powerwall had a cellular backup connection for these moments. Am I mistaken on that?

My Tesla app under solar just says device offline reconnect to WiFi.

 

[Jones1]

So my area is experiencing a fiber outage with AT&T. I thought powerwall had a cellular backup connection for these moments. Am I mistaken on that?

My Tesla app under solar just says device offline reconnect to WiFi.

Yes. They advertise that they have cellular. I was told my installer. It’s like the cars. That is strange. Hey. I live in your area. I need to check on my router.

 

[DrewHou]

Yes. They advertise that they have cellular. I was told my installer. It’s like the cars. That is strange. Hey. I live in your area. I need to check on my router.

That’s what I thought. Definitely not using cellular to update the app but maybe that’s normal idk . Yeah the outage map looked to covet a lot of our area but closer to the belt you might get lucky and not be in the outage. They claim to have it back up within 24 hours.

The price of living in an area with a lot of construction I guess

 

[Jones1]

That’s what I thought. Definitely not using cellular to update the app but maybe that’s normal idk . Yeah the outage map looked to covet a lot of our area but closer to the belt you might get lucky and not be in the outage. They claim to have it back up within 24 hours.

The price of living in an area with a lot of construction I guess

Yes. I’m not in the outage. My neighbors that have Xfinity are always having problems. I was thinking it was all of the construction. Then I remembered the time I tried Xfinity. It was good for 2 years. Then it was out for two weeks straight. I had to Hot Spot my Smart home.
I left and never went back.
I’ve had problems with AT&T. It’s usually back on by the evening or night. It hasn’t happened in awhile. Last time it was during the Astros playoffs.
Did you talk to Tesla about the Cellular connection?

 

[phsoccer]

So I signed up in December of last year. I believe I didn’t receive a bill to February. They didn’t take my money out of my account. They waited until after the next billing cycle. To take the withdrawal from my debit or checking account. It was confusing as hell. But it was great not paying for 3 months.

I finally got the bill. $0, but with a $41.50 credit towards next month. They paid me $0.26/kWh for my excess power generation.

 

[DrewHou]

Yes. I’m not in the outage. My neighbors that have Xfinity are always having problems. I was thinking it was all of the construction. Then I remembered the time I tried Xfinity. It was good for 2 years. Then it was out for two weeks straight. I had to Hot Spot my Smart home.
I left and never went back.
I’ve had problems with AT&T. It’s usually back on by the evening or night. It hasn’t happened in awhile. Last time it was during the Astros playoffs.
Did you talk to Tesla about the Cellular connection?

Yes I did, they claimed that they use AT&T cellular service and that cellular must have been down in my area too. I have Tmo for my cell so couldn’t confirm that but seems accurate as my Span panel also couldn’t connect to cellular either. Connection came back this morning around 9:30am and now I can see both show a cellular connection too. So guess that must have been it.