Tesla Solar Install Issues

[brucet999]

Utility approval before install?

First time I have used Tesla for solar but did for powerwalls. Have to other solar installs by others.

My job now is hung up because Tesla says they have to get pre approval from PG&E before they start the install. Is that the new normal now? And if so anyone have any idea how long that should take?

That sounds likely. Here in SoCal, SCE has to approve the solar installation plan. They want to ensure that the homeowner is not installing generation capacity exceeding what the prior 12 months usage had been. We had to submit a request for deviation from that limit because there would be additional consumption for an added AC system and an my Model S.

 

[dcorb9906]

The garage PW/solar install looks nice. I would be extra careful around the location of the Gateway2 however being it has a glass front. Our set up was different based on my wanting everything “white” (PWs, GW2 and inverter) on the same wall on the opposite side of our double car garage (required 2 inch PVC conduit to be run from the panel box a long distance compared to yours, at extra cost, but I placed our GW2 above our PWs to be more out of the way).

As for your Solar, yes they still need to come out and attach the side skirts. Possible they didn’t have enough on truck. Our pest abatement installers were new to it as well. One guy who had done it before was training the others. They had to come back and finish installing our netting during a second visit, had run out, and finish up the side panels. The side panels get installed on top of the netting BTW so what I see so far of yours looks like ours. Our guys took the netting anchors and bent them upward over the frame edge. Will attach photo to show. Should be able to click to zoom in for a better idea.

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Since you still have missing tiles to replace I’m sure they plan on bringing the roofing team back out. I would probably compile a checklist of items that you know needs completing and speaking to them to go over. That's what we did. During our install 40A breakers were sold out everywhere so a maintenance team had to come out when those became available. Our 3PWs and Solar install took place over a few days over a couple of weeks during the lightning fires timeframe.

Got PTO on Thursday and paid our second final payment yesterday and Tesla gave OK to turn on. Asked to have my account linked so I could also see the PWs and that appeared the next day, today, in my account. My husband decided he might like to see the solar production panel numbers so they also requested a SolarEdge account for him and said it would take a few days at least I think. But we are using solar and batteries and pretty happy.

My nephew lives in Marin and wants to add solar panels and maybe PowerWall as backup when PG&E outages come.

Please, all of you who have dealt with Tesla Energy in that area, let us know if the local branch does good and timely work. (I wouldn't recommend the branch near me to anyone.)

Thanks in advance.

@brucet999....Honestly, I think it's hit or miss.... It depends on how difficult the install is, what install team you get, and just plain luck. My nextdoor neighbors install turned out great, but mine, not so much. He had a smaller install job and his install team was local (Sacramento) and my install team was up here temporarily from Los Angeles. They are extremely busy right now and I think that adds to the quality of install going down.

 

[dcorb9906]

Utility approval before install?

First time I have used Tesla for solar but did for powerwalls. Have to other solar installs by others.

My job now is hung up because Tesla says they have to get pre approval from PG&E before they start the install. Is that the new normal now? And if so anyone have any idea how long that should take?

@aesculus...Thats interesting as I don't believe I had any hold up from PG&E. I thought there would be as I got 135% larger system than my current/past usage. Only hold up on my end was that earliest install time was ~30days out.

 

[mnsweeps]

That sounds likely. Here in SoCal, SCE has to approve the solar installation plan. They want to ensure that the homeowner is not installing generation capacity exceeding what the prior 12 months usage had been. We had to submit a request for deviation from that limit because there would be additional consumption for an added AC system and an my Model S.

Tesla did not have to get permission from SCE for my installation of PV + 2 Powerwalls. My inspection is tomorrow and then PTO application. I believe I chose the right size of PV based on my past usage...is capacity matching your needs the criteria for getting SCE approval?

 

[BrettS]

The pre-approval thing seems to vary by utility. Some utilities require it and others don’t. After my permit had been approved I asked my energy advisor if i was good to schedule the install and she told me that we needed to wait for my utility to give their pre-approval. Then 30 minutes later she texted me and said that she was mistaken and my utility didn’t require pre-approval, so I was able to schedule at that point.

 

[aesculus]

In my case my new PV plus old is still a rounding error on total consumption. Seems like they should just have to fill out a simple form that indicates that.

 

[h2ofun]

That sounds likely. Here in SoCal, SCE has to approve the solar installation plan. They want to ensure that the homeowner is not installing generation capacity exceeding what the prior 12 months usage had been. We had to submit a request for deviation from that limit because there would be additional consumption for an added AC system and an my Model S.

I know when I was working to get my solar installed, and I have PGE, the installer had to give two sets of data. One was how much power was needed based on the stuff in my house. The second was what my last 12 months of electricity use was. The later was way way great than the first, but luckily I was approved for a 14.5kw system since my last 12 month usage was so high.

i have heard some say you cannot get approved for solar larger than the last 12 months, others say like 120%, others say it does not matter as long as the power equipment from the pole supporting my house can handle the load.

 

[Redhill_qik]

I know when I was working to get my solar installed, and I have PGE, the installer had to give two sets of data. One was how much power was needed based on the stuff in my house. The second was what my last 12 months of electricity use was. The later was way way great than the first, but luckily I was approved for a 14.5kw system since my last 12 month usage was so high.

i have heard some say you cannot get approved for solar larger than the last 12 months, others say like 120%, others say it does not matter as long as the power equipment from the pole supporting my house can handle the load.

I was a bit worried about my PTO approval as my estimated production exceeded my current annual usage, but it went through quickly. The current PG&E PTO application lets you pick the highest annual kWh from the last three years and then add 10% to that number. You can then indicate that you plan on consuming more and how much. There isn't a spot on the form to indicate what you plan on adding, but I calculated that if I switched from my current gas water heater to an electric heat bump water heater that would add between 900-1200kWh annually. Adding an EV will soak up a lot of kWh.

 

[holeydonut]

I think the 110% or 120% limit is more of a guideline to avoid the situation where a solar company pushes a huuuuge array onto a customer that they don't need. The homeowner just has to acknowledge they understand why the system is sized to their needs.

The PTO form allows a homeowner to say they're expecting their future energy consumption to go up (eg, adding pool pumps or an EV).

In my case, I just moved into my home so my previous 12 months is unreliable since the house wasn't occupied for a few months during the last calendar year. I told Sunrun I wanted as many panels as they could fit on the side of the house that faced South. This would well exceed my previous year energy usage. They just asked me to sign a few forms saying I made an informed decision and it wasn't an issue.

There's still a residential limit to prevent a landowner from becoming an unauthorized power supplier, but I think that's out of scope for this thread.

 

[h2ofun]

I think the 110% or 120% limit is more of a guideline to avoid the situation where a solar company pushes a huuuuge array onto a customer that they don't need. The homeowner just has to acknowledge they understand why the system is sized to their needs.

The PTO form allows a homeowner to say they're expecting their future energy consumption to go up (eg, adding pool pumps or an EV).

In my case, I just moved into my home so my previous 12 months is unreliable since the house wasn't occupied for a few months during the last calendar year. I told Sunrun I wanted as many panels as they could fit on the side of the house that faced South. This would well exceed my previous year energy usage. They just asked me to sign a few forms saying I made an informed decision and it wasn't an issue.

There's still a residential limit to prevent a landowner from becoming an unauthorized power supplier, but I think that's out of scope for this thread.

I have heard of a case when a person installed a bunch of panels which I guess were not approved up front by pge. What he installed would not work with the equipment to his house, so if he wanted to keep, he would have had to pay a LOT of money to upgrade the PGE stuff. He ended up having to remove panels.

 

[dcorb9906]

I have heard of a case when a person installed a bunch of panels which I guess were not approved up front by pge. What he installed would not work with the equipment to his house, so if he wanted to keep, he would have had to pay a LOT of money to upgrade the PGE stuff. He ended up having to remove panels.

@h2ofun....I hope I don't have any issues with PG&E...I have 135% of my usage in solar panels put up.

 

[h2ofun]

@h2ofun....I hope I don't have any issues with PG&E...I have 135% of my usage in solar panels put up.

You should have gotten a copy of the forms from your installer they had to fill out and send to PGE. I did

 

[Redhill_qik]

I have heard of a case when a person installed a bunch of panels which I guess were not approved up front by pge. What he installed would not work with the equipment to his house, so if he wanted to keep, he would have had to pay a LOT of money to upgrade the PGE stuff. He ended up having to remove panels.

That sounds like it was a service or local transformer issue and installing the large solar array would exceed the infrastructure for electricity was being fed back to the grid. There have been multiple posts here with needing to upgrade the service coming into the home from 100A to 200A and in some case the local transformer is also undersized and needs to be upgraded.

 

[dcorb9906]

You should have gotten a copy of the forms from your installer they had to fill out and send to PGE. I did

@h2ofun... Yep I did get a copy and I believe I had to digitally sign as well(Interconnect Agreement?), but I never received any confirmation that it got approved. No news is good news?

 

[Redhill_qik]

@h2ofun... Yep I did get a copy and I believe I had to digitally sign as well(Interconnect Agreement?), but I never received any confirmation that it got approved. No news is good news?

Tesla doesn't submit the PG&E PTO application until after the system has passed inspection and you have paid the invoice. You will receive an email from PG&E immediately after Tesla submits (don't bother clicking the link in the email it only works for the submitter/Tesla), so no news means that they haven't submitted.

 

[nevian]

So I just got 42 solar panels and 2 powerwalls installed on Thursday and Friday. I am good with how the powerwall installation went but really disappointed with the solar panel install especially today as it's the first time I'm able to get up on my roof after they finished install. Does anyone have a number for install issues as my Tesla service advisor isn't the easiest to get in contact with and I was given no number if I were to have issues.

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The first problem came up when the install team had no idea about a pest abatement for them to install even though I had added a $1500 pest abatement(netting) through Tesla to go around the solar panels due to many neighbors having pigeon nesting problems. They told me the first day that it would be done at a different time as they have never done that before. Then, they told me on Friday that actually they were going to do the install but they didn't look too thrilled about it. It definitely shows that it was their first time installing this. Unfortunately, I had to go into work on Friday evening and could not be home for the last several hours of the install(they were supposed to be done early afternoon but it turns out it took a lot longer and they finished the installation closer to 6 pm).

My next issue is they didn't install the black trim on any of the sides of my panels, only the front. I have never seen a tesla install that did not have the side panel installed. I feel that having the trim on the bottom and sides makes it look clean and distinguishes tesla from other solar installs. I am thinking either the install team didn't have all the trim on their truck or were just possibly cutting corners to get the job done quicker. Has anyone not got the trim on the sides?

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The next issue is they scuffed up a couple of panels with what looks like either the paint from my rain gutters or from some metal like their ladders. They got the edge as well as in the center of the panel. Not sure if this will affect production that much but it's really disappointing to see.
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The next issue is the roof tiles. They only were able to replace 8 tiles but there is plenty more they need to replace. The ones they did replace, are not the same length as the original. They said someone should be calling me when they get more tiles in but they didn't have an ETA. I hope it's not going to be too long or there might be bigger issues as it's supposed to potential rain the latter part of next week.
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These are just the issues that I can see from my ladder. I have most of my solar panels on my upper roof that I can't reach or see very well so I am a little nervous about that. I understand that there are always things that can happen on an install but to spend this much money and get the final product to look like this is unfortunate.

is this Fontana, CA?

 

[jjrandorin]

is this Fontana, CA?

I would guess not, since that users account has "northern california" under their name and they mention PG&E which is only in NorCal. I am in Temecula and we have SCE here, and I think fontana also has SCE.