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Tesla Solar in Houston & Surrounding Area’s
- Thread starter Jones1
- Start date
finally the update I have been waiting on!
Thanks for the inform.
Nice!
I got a notice that somone 'liked' this post and I re-read my thoughts from over a year ago. And a few times I say 'ask me in a year' well now it has been more than a year and I thought I'd give my feedback now after living with the system for more than a year and also more than a year of owning my Model 3 RWD.
- I did get PTO of course but it took 399 days. I had some unique delays and went through 3 (I think) customer reps. The local Tesla installers were great. The virtual customer service reps are hit and miss. But the good news is that I've never needed customer service once the system was operational. A co-worker of mine who lives a few miles from me and had his system installed about the same time had to get all his panels re-installed because they were not correctly anchored to the roof. We live in a Hurricane build zone. But they did come out and do this work under warranty. No issues at all with my system, knock wood.
- I still have MP2 but now called Shell Energy. I'm in the TNMP gird area and this was the best plan TNMP supported at the time. They did not support any TOU plans. Now they do and I might think about changing. But I have this plan locked in for a few more years. One thing I did not understand was that even though this plan banks any kWhs I export, they do charge me a fee to deliver those banked kWhr when I use them. So I'm not being charged for the electricity, but I do get charged for delivering them. This results in higher than expected bills in the hot summer months when I use those banked kWhr to run my two A/C units nearly all day, day after day. But still my highest bills was around $56.
- Would I do it again? Yes. What would I do differently? I may have gotten a 3rd PW if I were doing this again. It may not pay itself back, but having a larger battery during the summer months would make the house more resilient to Hurricane type of outages. That doesn't happen very often. It is an edge case but one reason I got the system. A third PW would be useless in cooler months. And I'm hoping/expecting that one day I'll have a Tesla that has Vehicle to Home capability then I can easily ride out that edge case when it comes. My co-worker has 4 PWs and 16kw panels and has a hard time getting them charged.
- I am happy I increased the panels to 14.8 kw. I had space to go larger and I kind of wished I put a few more kWs. But that would have been on a different surface on my roof and increased the complexity of the design. It would give me more capacity for a 2nd EV and other uses, like the mini-split I installed in my garage. I charge my EV at the house. The system easily supports the house loads and EV charging over the course of a year. Below is my monthly grid usage and exported (banked) kWhrs. At one point I had over 3,000 banked kWhrs. I ended the year with 975. If/when we get a 2nd EV I might switch to a free nights plan and use the Solar to get me through the day time.
- Here are my costs for the same months. You can see I was charged for delivery of grid power but credited the banked kWrs. Still not bad for a 3,400 SF house in Houston Texas in a hot summer.
Had a chance to talk with the Tesla installer before I went to work. He had a lot of good information about Powerwall three. And the future of the installation on Tesla side of the business.
I’m using Siri so it may get everything wrong that I’m saying lol
So….
Tesla sent one installer.
Last time they sent two guys for the PW.
Tesla seems to be cutting back on installation. Going more with third party contractors.
PW3 can be wired with PW2.
Tesla has chosen to have them not compatible through software.
Tesla can make the changes later down the road if they wanted.
The Tesla Energy office or warehouse is in Sugarland. I always noticed a lot of Tesla Vans on that side of the beltway.
Tesla sent one installer.
Last time they sent two guys for the PW.
Tesla seems to be cutting back on installation. Going more with third party contractors.
PW3 can be wired with PW2.
Tesla has chosen to have them not compatible through software.
Tesla can make the changes later down the road if they wanted.
The Tesla Energy office or warehouse is in Sugarland. I always noticed a lot of Tesla Vans on that side of the beltway.
We have 4 cloudy days coming up. Let’s see how the Triplets hold up. It does suck sending all this energy back to the grid for .03 buy back. At least I don’t have a bill. I’ll still probably jump back to Tesla Electric. Soon. 
I paid that for 1 PW in 2020. That’s why I jumped on it. You get a discount for having a PV and PW system. It’s about $2k-$3k I think. Then you get the discount for two. Or more. Not sure. I didn’t take pictures of that page. I’ll go back and check. @DrewHou do you remember the initial discounts?
Such a tempting price. I’m also in the 1 PW camp. Are the new twins PW3?
No. PW3 is software locked to be non compatible to any other PW. These are PW2’s
So it’s - $2100 for expansion discount. Also minus the down payment. I also don’t see the charge for placing my PW’s on the other side of my garage. They had it listed at $1600 charge. It’s taken off. I haven’t gotten the final updated documents. After closing the purchase. They sent me the updated invoice after I paid the down payment or right before.
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