Tesla Virtual Power Plant in CA

[bmah]

I signed up for VPP to see what it's all about. Until we have an event I'm not sure if we will have any more substantive conversations.
I'm ok with it not being a sticky because it's pretty easy to find once we have an event to discuss.

(sorry for off-topic meta discussion)

Sticky threads are good for threads that have long-lasting reference value, but are mostly read-only and not a lot of people (maybe zero people) post to them, so they would fall off the first page if they were not made sticky. This thread IMHO doesn't fall into that category.

Bruce.

 

[jboy210]

CA VPP users (or potential users) should read this thread

Storm Watch failed us again [in MA, Late July 2021]

We have a massive thunderstorm coming through Massachusetts right now, and no Storm Watch event was declared. I have my PW set as 100% backup, but we're also part of Connected Solutions (Tesla Virtual Power Plant), and we output 72% of our 2 PW back out to the grid this afternoon. And just 15...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[sunwarriors]

CA VPP users should read this thread

Storm Watch failed us again [in MA, Late July 2021]

We have a massive thunderstorm coming through Massachusetts right now, and no Storm Watch event was declared. I have my PW set as 100% backup, but we're also part of Connected Solutions (Tesla Virtual Power Plant), and we output 72% of our 2 PW back out to the grid this afternoon. And just 15...

teslamotorsclub.com

Interesting...

My concern with the VPP has always been 'someone else is in control' when Solar/Storage/Generator is hopefully going to give me a bit more control of the energy situation. I'm also a little concerned that for whatever reason, I maybe forced to export power from the battery to the grid even if I opt out later (like it didn't take/save once you sign up...probably just my distrust of others in general).

 

[jjrandorin]

(sorry for off-topic meta discussion)

Sticky threads are good for threads that have long-lasting reference value, but are mostly read-only and not a lot of people (maybe zero people) post to them, so they would fall off the first page if they were not made sticky. This thread IMHO doesn't fall into that category.

Bruce.

Im going to contribute to the off topic meta here for a sec, lol. I see the above as one reason for sticky threads, but another one is to bring visibility even if a thread is fast moving. Its rare in this subforum (tesla energy) but many times I use sticky threads to consolidate a discussion that would otherwise run over the forum (like "my delivery date keeps shifting!" or "Hi everyone, I drove 100 miles in the past 7 days and my battery has gone from full to empty, who do I escalate this to at tesla?!?!? in the model 3 subforums).

The reason I was waffling back and forth on making this one a sticky or not is, its a hot button right now, but likely will die down some as people decide to enroll or not, then spin back up again as people experience what its doing.

TMC is also a large website, so we will likely get visitors here who join and start posting about it etc, as I see this topic as a fairly long standing one (VPP and tesla powerwalls in teslas largest PW installed based state which is CA).

I realize its off topic somewhat, but thats the thinking on why I was thinking about making it a sticky. The reason not to is as you mention, @bmah , its likely to be bumped up by itself.

 

[jjrandorin]

Interesting...

My concern with the VPP has always been 'someone else is in control' when Solar/Storage/Generator is hopefully going to give me a bit more control of the energy situation. I'm also a little concerned that for whatever reason, I maybe forced to export power from the battery to the grid even if I opt out later (like it didn't take/save once you sign up...probably just my distrust of others in general).

Back on topic....

I had this long (ranting at SCE) post typed out... but realized I was just on a soapbox. about SCEs HVAC cycling program and my extremely poor experience with that combined with nests rush hour rewards program. I had solar, but no powerwalls at the time.

Suffice it to say that "loss of control of my equipment" was a huge issue, and I would never sign up for those programs again... and my experience there has me looking "side eyed" at any program that gives anyone but me control over my home infrastructure systems (hvac, power etc).

 

[cwied]

CA VPP users (or potential users) should read this thread

Storm Watch failed us again [in MA, Late July 2021]

We have a massive thunderstorm coming through Massachusetts right now, and no Storm Watch event was declared. I have my PW set as 100% backup, but we're also part of Connected Solutions (Tesla Virtual Power Plant), and we output 72% of our 2 PW back out to the grid this afternoon. And just 15...

teslamotorsclub.com

I believe those that signed up with Connected Solutions do not get to adjust their backup reserve, though. California VPP users could adjust the backup reserve as soon as they realize what's happening to avoid their batteries' getting drained.
From what I've read, the California VPP program is significantly different from ones Tesla has done before. I'm interested to see how it works out in practice. Tomorrow is the first Flex Alert that's been called since the program rolled out. I wonder if Tesla plans to activate the VPP for that.

 

[Southpasfan]

Well, the ÇA VPP I have in my app is purely optional “do it for your neighbors” beta with no compensation at all.
Which is fine, I get the concept.
However, to sell it I think it would be good to say something like, I don’t know, for every 100 of us who sign up a grid outage for X people or for X people for Y minutes can be avoided, or Y minutes of a coal peaker plant can be avoided or whatever it is. It’s a bit vague at the moment.

 

[arnolddeleon]

I'm able to run "self-powered" with my Powerwall and solar additions. Basically I've been able to stop worrying about time of use even on "heat wave" days. I signed up for the current voluntary VPP because I'm curios to see it work (and hopefully become a paid program) I have made adjustments to my HVAC configuration so I'm storing energy in the house again by doing some minor "pre-cooling" during the day when sun is shining since I noticed most of my air conditioning use had been during the "peak" hours and in the event of a VPP it will likely land during those hours.

 

[skepticcyclist]

I'm able to run "self-powered" with my Powerwall and solar additions. Basically I've been able to stop worrying about time of use even on "heat wave" days. I signed up for the current voluntary VPP because I'm curios to see it work (and hopefully become a paid program) I have made adjustments to my HVAC configuration so I'm storing energy in the house again by doing some minor "pre-cooling" during the day when sun is shining since I noticed most of my air conditioning use had been during the "peak" hours and in the event of a VPP it will likely land during those hours.

One advantage of living on the west coast is we can use that big body of cold water to our west, the Pacific Ocean, to precool our houses beginning at night and through the morning of the next day. Even though it will consistently get into the 90s and 100s at my house this time of year, it will also cool down into the 60s at night.

By 8:00pm it's already in the 70's outside with a nice westerly ocean breeze. So we open all the windows and let nature cool down our house. We keep the windows opened all night long and well into mid morning the next day. Once the temps outside approach 80 and the inside is still on the lower 70s, we close everything. We won't even need to run the AC until about 1:00 - 3:00 pm. We set our AC at 76 and at 4:00pm raise it to 78. The AC will only cycle for about 2-4 hours even when it is over 100 outside, and most of that time will be during the off peak hours.

Being on the west coast during the summer, the humidity levels are pretty low as well. So we don't need to use the AC as a dehumidifier.

 

[woferry]

I enabled the feature, will be curious to see what happens the first time it kicks in. Then I'll decide whether I leave it on or not. If it works the way I think it does, I wish it had its own reserve level, like the way the vehicle charging during outage feature works, as I might want to set aside say 25% of my PW for this effort, but that doesn't mean I don't still want to power my house with the rest, so having to change the regular reserve really isn't what I'd want (I normally run my reserve at 4% in the summer).

 

[acastal]

If you log into the gateway and click summary is "Site Export Limit" a new option? I have 2PW and mine is set to 8kW

 

[Incredulocious]

CA VPP users (or potential users) should read this thread

Storm Watch failed us again [in MA, Late July 2021]

We have a massive thunderstorm coming through Massachusetts right now, and no Storm Watch event was declared. I have my PW set as 100% backup, but we're also part of Connected Solutions (Tesla Virtual Power Plant), and we output 72% of our 2 PW back out to the grid this afternoon. And just 15...

teslamotorsclub.com

Thanks for calling attention to this. Interesting how different that arrangement is.

I signed up to help with the virtual power plant system here in California, but I wouldn’t have if it didn’t include the ability to adjust the backup reserve (and honor it) or if it weren’t easy to opt out later. I look forward to seeing how it goes when it actually kicks in.

 

[wwu123]

One advantage of living on the west coast is we can use that big body of cold water to our west, the Pacific Ocean, to precool our houses beginning at night and through the morning of the next day. Even though it will consistently get into the 90s and 100s at my house this time of year, it will also cool down into the 60s at night.

By 8:00pm it's already in the 70's outside with a nice westerly ocean breeze. So we open all the windows and let nature cool down our house. We keep the windows opened all night long and well into mid morning the next day. Once the temps outside approach 80 and the inside is still on the lower 70s, we close everything. We won't even need to run the AC until about 1:00 - 3:00 pm. We set our AC at 76 and at 4:00pm raise it to 78. The AC will only cycle for about 2-4 hours even when it is over 100 outside, and most of that time will be during the off peak hours.

Being on the west coast during the summer, the humidity levels are pretty low as well. So we don't need to use the AC as a dehumidifier.

It's basically using the house mass as a "thermal powerwall" you can "charge up" each night with pre-cooling and then passively discharge as it buffers the warming during the day/afternoon... I like to amplify the effect with a whole house fan running at night (which not only draws more cool air across the interio surfaces, but also flushes out the hot attic air more quickly), and sometimes an evaporative cooler (if the nightly humidity hasn't risen too much yet before sunset).

Though not sure how many more seasons this will be effective - as the heat waves get both hotter and longer in duration, the lack of cooling off at night mitigates these effects, and our house thermal mass ends up much warmer by the third day of a heat wave.

Still, this summer has been very manageable for us, compared to the previous few years, we've managed to stay in that coastal buffer and stay cooler than average. So can't complain - meanwhile friends living just 10 more miles inland have seen temps sometimes soaring 20-30 degrees higher than us on the same day/evening.

 

[jboy210]

It's basically using the house mass as a "thermal powerwall" you can "charge up" each night with pre-cooling and then passively discharge as it buffers the warming during the day/afternoon... I like to amplify the effect with a whole house fan running at night (which not only draws more cool air across the interio surfaces, but also flushes out the hot attic air more quickly), and sometimes an evaporative cooler (if the nightly humidity hasn't risen too much yet before sunset).

Though not sure how many more seasons this will be effective - as the heat waves get both hotter and longer in duration, the lack of cooling off at night mitigates these effects, and our house thermal mass ends up much warmer by the third day of a heat wave.

Still, this summer has been very manageable for us, compared to the previous few years, we've managed to stay in that coastal buffer and stay cooler than average. So can't complain - meanwhile friends living just 10 more miles inland have seen temps sometimes soaring 20-30 degrees higher than us on the same day/evening.

I am one of those people living inland. Here in the Tri-Valley we have been opening windows at 10 PM and closing them by 9 AM. Our attic has been getting up to 140 F the last couple of weeks.

 

[MJ_CA_2019]

I am one of those people living inland. Here in the Tri-Valley we have been opening windows at 10 PM and closing them by 9 AM. Our attic has been getting up to 140 F the last couple of weeks.

In the Central Valley we don't get a lot of opportunities to open the windows and take advantage of our whole house fan...

It is slightly better than when I lived in AZ though... we didn't crack a window for 8 months or more.

 

[jboy210]

In the Central Valley we don't get a lot of opportunities to open the windows and take advantage of our whole house fan...

It is slightly better than when I lived in AZ though... we didn't crack a window for 8 months or more.

I grew up in Fresno, so I know exactly what you mean.

 

[sunwarriors]

In the Central Valley we don't get a lot of opportunities to open the windows and take advantage of our whole house fan...

It is slightly better than when I lived in AZ though... we didn't crack a window for 8 months or more.

I wouldn't mind doing a whole house fan, but spouse (and me) doesn't like windows open at night due to the 'safety/risk' aspect of leaving a window open late hours with no one to monitor/watch it due to breakins/etc. I hear people are breaking in with people home as well in my area so there's that too.

 

[jjrandorin]

I wouldn't mind doing a whole house fan, but spouse (and me) doesn't like windows open at night due to the 'safety/risk' aspect of leaving a window open late hours with no one to monitor/watch it due to breakins/etc. I hear people are breaking in with people home as well in my area so there's that too.

I only open upstairs windows at night, even though I live in a pretty safe area. My spouse and I have the same concern / worry, even though its fairly irrational, all things considered. This is not new for me, however, I have never opened windows at night when I lived in apartments on the ground floor. Probably comes from my background, as I grew up in "not so nice" neighborhoods, and continued to live in those neighborhoods in my early adulthood.

I am long removed from that, but still only open 1st floor windows when I am awake. Where I live, the "whole home fan overnight" works extremely well. The company headquarters for one of the most popular ones (quiet cool) is actually in the somewhat smaller (by So. Cal standards) city I live in, and the creator of the product is from this city is my understanding.

It gets very hot here, but cools off to mid 60s over night even right now, so opening a couple of upstairs windows at 7:30 to 8Pm in our upstairs master means that by the time we go to bed, even if I have not run the AC upstairs all day before that (and its 86-87 degrees up there before I open the window and turn on the fan), by 10:30pm our master bedroom is 71-72.

 

[tomuo]

I am one of those people living inland. Here in the Tri-Valley we have been opening windows at 10 PM and closing them by 9 AM. Our attic has been getting up to 140 F the last couple of weeks.

Do you have a radiant barrier?

InfraStop Diamond Radiant Barrier 1000 sq.ft Perforated - Carpet Underlayments - Amazon.com

InfraStop Diamond Radiant Barrier 1000 sq.ft Perforated - Carpet Underlayments - Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

One roll of this goes a long way. Just need a staple gun, attach to the underside of the roof. I cut into 2x4 sheets to be manageable. It's a tiring and time consuming install, but now my attic temps are only 5-10F above ambient (didn't measure it directly before, but it was instant sweat inducing).

 

[jboy210]

Do you have a radiant barrier?

InfraStop Diamond Radiant Barrier 1000 sq.ft Perforated - Carpet Underlayments - Amazon.com

InfraStop Diamond Radiant Barrier 1000 sq.ft Perforated - Carpet Underlayments - Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

One roll of this goes a long way. Just need a staple gun, attach to the underside of the roof. I cut into 2x4 sheets to be manageable. It's a tiring and time consuming install, but now my attic temps are only 5-10F above ambient (didn't measure it directly before, but it was instant sweat inducing).

No radiant barrier. I thought about it, but I have a solarroof and am worried about cooking the underside of the tiles and wires.

I think a part of the issue is we have very few intake vents, a dozen or so 1" diameter holes on each side's eaves, so I am looking into increasing those. We also have a 2' X 3' gable vent on each end of the main roof and I may also add fans to those.