Tesla voiding warranties over Hawaii PV Program?

[kulea]

I am on the Battery Bonus program, but am grandfathered NEM. As far as I know it doesn't void your warranty, as it falls within use parameters (each PW is allowed to discharge up to 37.8 MWh total over 10 years, while the BB is only using 36.5, at most) and the program was designed with Tesla's cooperation with PW's in mind. My installer is a Tesla dealer, signed me up for the BB program, and absolutely confirmed the warranty. One issue for someone like you (not NEM) is that they only guarantee an even swap on electricity used/returned to the grid for 3 years. After that, they haven't said how much they will pay for the electricity your PW's supply the grid, so it could be zero (which means you're giving them free electricity and getting nothing in return). While you can drop the program at that time, you'd have to return a prorated portion of your incentive. This isn't as big of an issue if you are using all of your discharge and not exporting any of it. Also, joining the program requires that your installer do a bunch of paperwork, and monitor and report during the testing period. It might be possible to do this yourself, but HECO probably won't make it easy. It might be better to look into the SWELL Battery Reward program, which is tailored more for Customer Grid Supply users, and operates similar to a VPP.

hi
hbr

 

[kulea]

YES
I would think they should just hold you to the discharge warranty, not the unlimited warranty for home use. There is also a hidden cost of participating, you loses 10% on the round trip efficiency. So they should pay you a higher export rate during the discharge period.

I believe that is what the $25 per month per 10 KWh daily discharge is sorta for.

 

[kulea]

I'm also afraid there's something I'm missing. I haven't found anyone who really understands this program. I think everyone assumes your obligated to discharge your battery by exporting to the grid for 2 hours. They don't recognize the NEM credit and/or option to just consume the energy onsite.

Then again, the program has taken-off in popularity it would appear. In the past 3 months the number of people enrolled appears to have doubled. If your a new customer to this program and haven't enrolled, it looks like the incentive is going to be about half what I mentioned above moving forward. I should be grandfathered into the terms presented in this thread because I applied a month and a half ago.

Nearly everyone joining the program is NEM. It isn't that good for CGS (which is why most installers poo poo it for new customers) unless you use all the electricity you discharge (for you, that would be 10KW for 2 hours) and export almost nothing, which most households can't do.

 

[kulea]

I *think* I am going to be receiving a slightly higher rate. I read that enrolled customers are still eligible to receive any incentive from their current energy plan. For CGS+, I get something like 10c/kwh. If that is additive to the market rate export credit provided then I think this is pretty fair.

I was planning on just consuming the energy on site by charging my EVs during this window. If I am getting a NEW (or greater) credit for export then I'm way less worried about that.

I don't think that is correct, you just get a retail usage credit, like you are NEM, for the electricity exported during your commited period. You would get CGS+ rates outside of those hours.

 

[cwied]

So, PW can't be commanded to enable and disable exporting via API? The scheduling could be done externally.

Not as such. The only API available is the one used by the mobile app, so you can only change modes to the ones supported by Tesla. If you have “export everything” enabled, you could probably configure a peak period to get close to the right behavior, but you’d have no direct control over the export rate.

 

[SBerg]

For what it's worth, Tesla's warranty is worthless anyway. They may or may not get around to fixing any problems you have and they do so with impunity.

 

[Gu$ G]

I don't think that is correct, you just get a retail usage credit, like you are NEM, for the electricity exported during your commited period. You would get CGS+ rates outside of those hours.

Thank you for all the insight. I will continue to pursue my application to the program to see what more I learn and see if I am eligible. I'm trying to apply on my own since I have Tesla solar and PWs already installed. Of note, (covered earlier) I'm adding additional solar to get more PWs from Tesla. Tesla is telling me they won't sign customers up for Battery Bonus.

 

[Billme]

Is there a maximum kw that a residential system can typically export? What is this limited by? I've applied for 10 kw but I don't know if that's reasonable. I don't want to burn my house down.

Not that I know of. It’s limited only by the service you have feeding the home, less the amount you plan to consume during the period. It would be challenging to add more than 2 PWs worth of discharge unless you have 200 amp service.

The way I was reading the program, HECO has a way of measuring and monitoring the discharge rate of enrolled batteries. This is different than just measuring what is exported. Obviously the standard equipment is measuring this and reporting it in the app. Where is that and is there a reasonable way for HECO to access it?

You start this program by submitting 30 days of compliant data for them to validate. The assumption appears to be that your installer will configure this (there‘s no direct method or interface for you to do it), and the system will discharge the appropriate amount at the selected time. The PW configuration, done by Tesla, comes through as an “Extra Program”, mine shows up like this:

• EXTRA PROGRAMS
  • HECO Battery Bonus
  • 5 kW, 18:00

Yes, the power can be consumed in your house, or sent to the grid. This means sometimes you’ll still be drawing from the grid and from the Powerwall, so just monitoring how much is exported wouldn’t help the utility determine if you’re compliant.

I don’t believe HECO has a direct way of monitoring this, although I’m scheduled to get a new “smart meter” that could potentially provide more information to both me and the utility. It still can’t see when power discharged from the battery is consumed in the home.

Two other points: during a “storm watch”, the discharge to the grid is disabled. Also, you can limit the amount of energy discharged to less than the configured amount by adjusting the Backup Reserve; the PW won’t discharge more than the reserve regardless of how the gateway is configured, so you can essentially declare your own “storm watch” anytime you’re not comfortable with meeting the utility’s requirement.

PM me if you need the name of an installer in Hawaii who understands how to do this.

 

[Gu$ G]

If you have “export everything” enabled, you could probably configure a peak period to get close to the right behavior, but you’d have no direct control over the export rate.

This is interesting. This program reimburses based on "committed capacity" which is how much energy I agree to discharge (thus configure to discharge) during the 2 hour period.

I was assumed if I had 6 PW I have a range of capacity I can elect to enroll in the program. The maximum I could commit would be whatever the max discharge rate of my PW is over 2 hours (I have 200 A service currently). If I wanted to enroll less than that I assumed there is a way to configure a slower discharge rate...

BTW, I will highlight that it is my intent to consume ALL of this energy on site to make this program worth while (I am not net metering). I have a swimming pool, hot tub, laundry/cooking, plus charging one of my EV for that 2 hour block every day, this seems like no problem...

@kulea, thank you. I figure if the reimbursement for any export to the grid drops significantly after 3 years I will just disenroll at that time. I imagine the terms will still have been pretty favorable so long as I have made good use of most of the discharged energy during that time.

 

[Gu$ G]

Nearly everyone joining the program is NEM. It isn't that good for CGS (which is why most installers poo poo it for new customers) unless you use all the electricity you discharge (for you, that would be 10KW for 2 hours) and export almost nothing, which most households can't do.

@kulea can you confirm that you’ve been able to discharge for 2 hours by just consuming the energy in your home? This is the critical question for me to make this worth my while on CGS. I have plenty of electrical demand I could use for that time, 10kW would be easy.

 

[kulea]

@kulea can you confirm that you’ve been able to discharge for 2 hours by just consuming the energy in your home? This is the critical question for me to make this worth my while on CGS. I have plenty of electrical demand I could use for that time, 10kW would be easy.

Well, I don't use enough electricity to confirm that. My battery exports at 5kW for2 hours. During that period, my house is usually using about 2 kW. I can say that all that the house needs is being supplied by the PW, with the rest of 5 kW being exported.