Tesla Solar Roof & Powerwall + 10 kW System Solar Generation is Lacking

[iorchii]

Looking for advice, opinions, assistance regarding the curve - we have been battling with Tesla Customer Service to have them come out to run diagnostics as to why our solar generation drops by ~1kW at 11am. Ideas?
***Images are the better days, 70% of the time it is really ugly***

 

[garrett5688]

Shading? What is your layout relative to north?

 

[buckets0fun]

I assume you to have powerwall+ Judging by your icons.

Do you have each mounting plane run through the MCI to its own MPPT port on the inverter?

 

[iorchii]

Shading? What is your layout relative to north?

No shading, we have 3kW extra of active files facing north highlighted area that isn't reflected - another battle that is on-going on the moment too.

 

[iorchii]

I assume you to have powerwall+ Judging by your icons.

Do you have each mounting plane run through the MCI to its own MPPT port on the inverter?

Yes, we one (1) PW+ & (2) PW stacked with one inverter.
How do I check the mounting plane connection?

 

[SVDNN]

Looking for advice, opinions, assistance regarding the curve - we have been battling with Tesla Customer Service to have them come out to run diagnostics as to why our solar generation drops by ~1kW at 11am. Ideas?
***Images are the better days, 70% of the time it is really ugly***

Sorry...do not follow you...need more info.
You are mentioning about a drop by 1k at 11am but your graphs do not show that. Moreover, they are "reasonable" production curves and values that demonstrate things are working considering they were in Feb, and maybe I am presuming that you have a fair amount of North directed tiles on the right side of house.

TO help you better...it would nice to know:
- show the curve you are mentioning with cut off at 11am and weather during that day's production
-amount tiles kW in given directions (SW, NE, etc)
-what size inverters used for amount of tile kW sections
-where you live in the country
-constant shading issues (tall trees shading your roof)...maybe none, and makes sense based on your curves shown

 

[SVDNN]

...sorry get it now, your peak is at 11a and proceeds downward from there....again would be helpful for other info

 

[buckets0fun]

Yes, we one (1) PW+ & (2) PW stacked with one inverter.
How do I check the mounting plane connection?

You likely shouldn’t open the tesla inverters to check. But if you have the engineering docs, you should be able to tell.

Without knowing your house orientation in relation to North, as well as roof pitch (if some MPs are shaded starting at 11a), this will be a bit difficult to tell you much.

It seems like you’re on par with other SG installs. 1kW of production “drop” could be as simple as a chimney or water pipe or a different mounting plane shading most of another. Can you take photos of the mounting planes at 11am, 1115am, 12pm? This will help narrow down what you’re experiencing.

Have you had the system long enough to show us a perfect summer day screenshot?

What size is the inverter they installed ~7kW?

 

[jboy210]

Your looks like our Solarroof, which is due to shading this time of the year. The low sun clips the tops of trees causing a reduction. We are lucky to generate 20 kWh this time of year. And get over 70 kWh in the weeks around the summer solstice (June 21) peak.

If you do have some data from this time last year send it to Tesla. We did have a production issue. They spent a month or so analyzing it, formulated a plan, and came out and replaced a section of solar tiles.

 

[h2ofun]

Your looks like our Solarroof, which is due to shading this time of the year. The low sun clips the tops of trees causing a reduction. We are lucky to generate 20 kWh this time of year. And get over 70 kWh in the weeks around the summer solstice (June 21) peak.

If you do have some data from this time last year send it to Tesla. We did have a production issue. They spent a month or so analyzing it, formulated a plan, and came out and replaced a section of solar tiles.

I just got over 90kwh today for the first time this year.. I hit 185kwh once last year, wonder if on a perfect day it will give me 200, probably not, the inverters will limit

 

[iorchii]

Sorry...do not follow you...need more info.
You are mentioning about a drop by 1k at 11am but your graphs do not show that. Moreover, they are "reasonable" production curves and values that demonstrate things are working considering they were in Feb, and maybe I am presuming that you have a fair amount of North directed tiles on the right side of house.

TO help you better...it would nice to know:
- show the curve you are mentioning with cut off at 11am and weather during that day's production
-amount tiles kW in given directions (SW, NE, etc)
-what size inverters used for amount of tile kW sections
-where you live in the country
-constant shading issues (tall trees shading your roof)...maybe none, and makes sense based on your curves shown

1) Amount tiles kW in given directions (SW, NE, etc)

• 35 facing N - 2.06 kW
• 2(23) facing E - 2.7 kW
• 35 facing W - 2.06 kW
• 2(28) facing W - 3.3 kW

2) What size inverters were used for the amount of tile kW sections

• One Tesla Inverter 7kW

3) Where you live in the country

• Southern California

4) Constant shading issues (tall trees shading your roof)...maybe none, and makes sense based on your curves shown

• Correct no roof shading at all

Have you experienced the in your Tesla app the Solar Roof charging value jump constantly? Thank you.

 

[iorchii]

You likely shouldn’t open the tesla inverters to check. But if you have the engineering docs, you should be able to tell.

Without knowing your house orientation in relation to North, as well as roof pitch (if some MPs are shaded starting at 11a), this will be a bit difficult to tell you much.

It seems like you’re on par with other SG installs. 1kW of production “drop” could be as simple as a chimney or water pipe or a different mounting plane shading most of another. Can you take photos of the mounting planes at 11am, 1115am, 12pm? This will help narrow down what you’re experiencing.

Have you had the system long enough to show us a perfect summer day screenshot?

What size is the inverter they installed ~7kW?

1) Without knowing your house orientation in relation to North, as well as roof pitch (if some MPs are shaded starting at 11a), this will be a bit difficult to tell you much.

• 35 facing N - Pitch 21, Azimuth 351
• 2(23) facing E - Pitch 21, Azimuth 81
• 35 facing W - Pitch 21, Azimuth 261
• 2(28) facing W - Pitch 13, Azimuth 261

2) It seems like you’re on par with other SG installs. 1kW of production “drop” could be as simple as a chimney or water pipe or a different mounting plane shading most of another. Can you take photos of the mounting planes at 11am, 1115am, 12pm? This will help narrow down what you’re experiencing.

• No water pipe, our chimney doesn't shade anywhere near any active PVs (and for some reason Tesla decided to install ROR on our South facing roof)
  

3) Have you had the system long enough to show us a perfect summer day screenshot?

• This is considered a perfect summer day on July 15th 2021

What size is the inverter they installed ~7kW?

• Yes, a Tesla 7kW inverter

Today's screenshot at 11:35am & 12:35pm:

 

[iorchii]

Your looks like our Solarroof, which is due to shading this time of the year. The low sun clips the tops of trees causing a reduction. We are lucky to generate 20 kWh this time of year. And get over 70 kWh in the weeks around the summer solstice (June 21) peak.

If you do have some data from this time last year send it to Tesla. We did have a production issue. They spent a month or so analyzing it, formulated a plan, and came out and replaced a section of solar tiles.

Thanks for the info, Tesla did come out on January 24th to replace the modules(which took us 2 months of constantly calling energy support before they would schedule us an appointment), team that replaced the modules told us to follow up in 3 weeks.
Emailed them a month after in February *crickets* - no response.
Called 3x since & customer service indicates the energy analyst is working on it.
Emailed the energy analyst assigned, their reply - "I am not customer-facing call energy customer support".

When they replaced the section of your solar tiles, did they?

• Add additional active PVs
• Move tiles from one mounting plane to another
• Replace some active PVs

Thanks.

 

[jboy210]

Thanks for the info, Tesla did come out on January 24th to replace the modules(which took us 2 months of constantly calling energy support before they would schedule us an appointment), team that replaced the modules told us to follow up in 3 weeks.
Emailed them a month after in February *crickets* - no response.
Called 3x since & customer service indicates the energy analyst is working on it.
Emailed the energy analyst assigned, their reply - "I am not customer-facing call energy customer support".

When they replaced the section of your solar tiles, did they?

• Add additional active PVs
• Move tiles from one mounting plane to another
• Replace some active PVs

Thanks.

They double-checked all of the wiring in the southern area of the roof. This required removing a significant number of tiles. They connected up meters and found some sections that were not producing as expected, so they replaced those tiles with new active tiles. The end result was an increase in solar production.

FWIW, we ran into the same thing with level 2 support. They are definitely not customer-facing. They perform the analysis of the data in the database and then suggest actions for the local installation/support team to perform. I envision them as more system designers and analysts. Sort of like developers you never let talk to customers.:->

Anyway, once the local guys were set loose they showed up quickly. In fact, they called me when we were on vacation and wanted to start the next day. I told them I was not home and asked if we could put it off for a week. They said they had a hole in their schedule and if I delayed .... So I let them do the work while we were gone. They spent 3-4 days here checking out things (inverter, Gateway, etc.) and then replacing the tiles. We were home the last 2 days and they had a crew of 4 people working.

 

[SVDNN]

Would venture that you are seeing the drop at that time as transitioning from E to W tiles and you are likely not capturing the N ones as much as you would in summer (July 15) as those N ones would get maximized at the peak of day during summer and you would see as a fuller peak production.
Realize next Sunday...your peak time will no longer be at 11:30a but will instead magically occur at 12:30p!!
Your inverter does not appear to be clipping at your peak in winter or summer. But since you have only 1 inverter, it will be more challenging to trace output from the different sections (directions) of tiles on your own.

 

[SVDNN]

Here is similar but different problem ...Unfortunately, my tile orientation are more variable and off straight compass lines then yours.
in winter to spring time, my production peak is bifid. However, this goes away to a single rounded peak by start of April and continues until Dec.
Pitch all 19deg
SE-104, 5.1kW
SW-207, 3.4kW
NE-27, 3.9kW
NW-300, 7.7kW
(overall not ideal layout, but I have many 50-75ft trees surrounding the property that affect the early and late production as well as 4 very large trees close to house on the south western and south eastern exposure that impacts production mid day that active tiles were not a viable option to place on the roof in certain locations)

 

[slcasner]

But since you have only 1 inverter, it will be more challenging to trace output from the different sections (directions) of tiles on your own.

If you have a Tesla inverter (e.g., Powerwall+) and if the different sections of tiles are wired to separate MPPTs in the inverter then you can get separate current, voltage and power for each section using pypowerwall.

 

[iorchii]

If you have a Tesla inverter (e.g., Powerwall+) and if the different sections of tiles are wired to separate MPPTs in the inverter then you can get separate current, voltage and power for each section using pypowerwall.

Thank you for the sharing, my technical knowledge is limited but I will give this a try - instructions seem straight forward.
Does the API offer exporting historical (lifetime) energy data e.g. home energy consumption, solar generation, sent to grid, etc...? Obviously the "Download My Data" in the Tesla app is limited to the summary in the present screen. Thanks.

 

[iorchii]

Here is similar but different problem ...Unfortunately, my tile orientation are more variable and off straight compass lines then yours.
in winter to spring time, my production peak is bifid. However, this goes away to a single rounded peak by start of April and continues until Dec.
Pitch all 19deg
SE-104, 5.1kW
SW-207, 3.4kW
NE-27, 3.9kW
NW-300, 7.7kW
(overall not ideal layout, but I have many 50-75ft trees surrounding the property that affect the early and late production as well as 4 very large trees close to house on the south western and south eastern exposure that impacts production mid day that active tiles were not a viable option to place on the roof in certain locations)

View attachment 778181View attachment 778182View attachment 778183

Thank you this is very helpful, yet another day another challenge for us.
Our PTO occurred last year, but apparently as of today, we are on "Self Consumption Only" pending utility approval - the solar roof install experience has been more exhausting than anything else.

Question:
With your current 20kW Solar Roof, do you have (2) parallel strings exceeding (35) tiles on one MP going to your inverters?
After diving deeper, I am trying to figure out why the Tesla designer decided to do E - (2)23 active PVs instead they couldn't easily maximized the entire roof instead of placing any N PVs at all.

 

[slcasner]

Does the API offer exporting historical (lifetime) energy data e.g. home energy consumption, solar generation, sent to grid, etc...? Obviously the "Download My Data" in the Tesla app is limited to the summary in the present screen. Thanks.

AFAIK the GW local API just provides instantaneous data, but you can use a program to query the API periodically and save the data into a database. Powerwall-Dashboard is an example program that uses Grafana, InfluxDB and Telegraf along with pypowerwall to poll, record and display the data.