Self Powered worked fine for the six sunnier months of the year will result in the battery hitting empty many days during the winter six months as the average solar output is below the home usage and I had that happen before Tesla enabled TBC. Getting fully drained isn't good for the longevity of the Lithium cells so I want to avoid it. At the moment the algorithm for deciding the extent of off-peak charging seems to be very erratic and it could do better even without any half-good solar generation forecast. However, sensibly the provision for a generation forecast should be there and the easiest way would be a user-defined target charge at the end of the off-peak period.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Tesla: we need more control over our PowerWalls
- Thread starter Ulmo
- Start date
Your situation is definitely worse than mine in California. Since we have the Backup Gateway we can just set a high Reserve and it will just cycle the small solar generation we get in the Winter. This is Yesterday. It charged a little, the Peak rate period started and it quickly used up that energy. I set the Reserve to 50% in the Winter. It's basically one Powerwall for backup and one Powerwall for cycling.
sashton
Member
Sadly, I have recently been told that the UK Backup Gateway has been shelved. So we will have no possibility to regulate Tesla's brain dead Cost Saving algorythm by manipulating the backup reservation.
I have had my (UK)PW2 for seventeen months and have a chain of emails promising me a UK BuG is just about to arrive. First it was Dec '17 , April '18, July '18... The last email said end of this year. I just paid for my second PW and the following day my supplier told me the news on the UK BuG.
WPD (my DNO) has just inflicted us with their 23rd powercut this year
To say I am pissed off is an understatement.
I have had my (UK)PW2 for seventeen months and have a chain of emails promising me a UK BuG is just about to arrive. First it was Dec '17 , April '18, July '18... The last email said end of this year. I just paid for my second PW and the following day my supplier told me the news on the UK BuG.
WPD (my DNO) has just inflicted us with their 23rd powercut this year
To say I am pissed off is an understatement.
I wouldn't describe the algorithm as brain dead as it would be more predictable than the current behaviour. It's more the opposite: Hyper-active. Or maybe it's just stupid - it's certainly in no hurry to learn that in my case for the next few months it could overnight charge to 75% and both have enough stored power to get through the next day if the sun doesn't shine and have the capacity to store any excess solar generation if there is decent solar production. I'm currently living in hope that Tesla will provide a Christmas present in the form of some improved software.
sashton
Member
It would be nice to think that Tesla reacts to these forums but sadly I do not believe they do. There are plenty of weather services that provide three-hourly cloud cover predictions. Combine that with recent yield history and you can pretty easily calculate the subsequent days projected yield. I do it with api.openweathermap.org but there are many others out there. The reason I selected them is that using their data I get the best correlation between predicted and observed. Being able to set the off-peak charge target via an api would be ideal but, yet again, I don't see that on the horizon either.
Currently I only use it to decide how/when and at what rate the cars will be charged but the advent of the Zappi hub API imminent I'm hoping to do this in a far more granular way. I may even write my wife an app for her phone so she can let the system know when she plans to use the car again (and how far she plans to go) so I can calculate a least-cost charge plan.
My Personal seem to be really confused since 1.25.0 or so. Before that version, they followed a very predictable pattern when under Self-powered or balanced TBC mode. Now I sometime have really odd days that don't make much sense.
Today, for example, once the sun came up over the mountain around 730, my system started charging the Powerwalls while the grid covered the household use (including charging all three Teslas). Around 9 am, it stopped charging the Powerwalls and decided to help cover some of the household load for an hour. Then around 10 it started charging the Powerwalls again. Then it sent everything to the grid for a few minutes. Then back to the Powerwalls...then back to the grid... and then back to the Powerwalls until finally it decided to send everything back to the grid for the rest of the day.
Is anyone else seeing this unpredictable behavior? I understood things better when it would charge the Powerwalls non-stop and then send everything back to the grid for the rest of the day.
Today, for example, once the sun came up over the mountain around 730, my system started charging the Powerwalls while the grid covered the household use (including charging all three Teslas). Around 9 am, it stopped charging the Powerwalls and decided to help cover some of the household load for an hour. Then around 10 it started charging the Powerwalls again. Then it sent everything to the grid for a few minutes. Then back to the Powerwalls...then back to the grid... and then back to the Powerwalls until finally it decided to send everything back to the grid for the rest of the day.
Is anyone else seeing this unpredictable behavior? I understood things better when it would charge the Powerwalls non-stop and then send everything back to the grid for the rest of the day.
Yes, I have also had the kind of problem you showed with intermittent charging starting with 1.25.0. I showed it in the thread 1.25.0My Personal seem to be really confused since 1.25.0 or so. Before that version, they followed a very predictable pattern when under Self-powered or balanced TBC mode. Now I sometime have really odd days that don't make much sense.
Today, for example, once the sun came up over the mountain around 730, my system started charging the Powerwalls while the grid covered the household use (including charging all three Teslas). Around 9 am, it stopped charging the Powerwalls and decided to help cover some of the household load for an hour. Then around 10 it started charging the Powerwalls again. Then it sent everything to the grid for a few minutes. Then back to the Powerwalls...then back to the grid... and then back to the Powerwalls until finally it decided to send everything back to the grid for the rest of the day.
Is anyone else seeing this unpredictable behavior? I understood things better when it would charge the Powerwalls non-stop and then send everything back to the grid for the rest of the day.
However, it has moderated and it seems to be more consistent recently. Tesla Powerwall support blamed it on my frequently changing the Reserve. The way I remember it, I changed the reserve BECAUSE it was acting weird.
Now that you mention it, I think I did change it to Self-powered for a minute today but then I changed my mind and decided to just change it back to TBC. I'll try leaving it alone and see if it goes back to normal. I will then try changing it again and see if the pattern repeats.
Yesterday during heavy rains at my house, I set my PowerWalls to Backup Only. I wanted to charge them up with the grid, since we need backup power, and the PowerWalls were only at 35%. The PowerWalls never charged up from the grid.
Today, we received heavy winds, and the power went out. The PowerWalls had not charged from the grid, and currently only have 39%
This is a huge failure of Tesla NOT ALLOWING US TO CONTROL THE BATTERIES WE OWN.
Today, we received heavy winds, and the power went out. The PowerWalls had not charged from the grid, and currently only have 39%
This is a huge failure of Tesla NOT ALLOWING US TO CONTROL THE BATTERIES WE OWN.
Last edited:
Of course, they do not charge from solar when the skies are dark, whether because of night or because of heavy clouds and rain, both of which are why I set the batteries to backup IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I KNOW I WANT THEM TO BE DOING BACKUP NOW. THAT IS WHY I TOLD THE APP TO DO BACKUP NOW. YET THEY ARE NOT CHARGING FROM THE GRID, AND REMAIN DISCHARGED DOWN TO 39%.
WE ARE RECEIVING WIND GUSTS UP TO 50MPH!!!!! THE POWER HAS COME BACK, BUT COULD GO OUT AGAIN. WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO CHARGE OUR BATTERIES FOR BACKUP PURPOSE!!!!!
I KNOW I WANT THEM TO BE DOING BACKUP NOW. THAT IS WHY I TOLD THE APP TO DO BACKUP NOW. YET THEY ARE NOT CHARGING FROM THE GRID, AND REMAIN DISCHARGED DOWN TO 39%.
WE ARE RECEIVING WIND GUSTS UP TO 50MPH!!!!! THE POWER HAS COME BACK, BUT COULD GO OUT AGAIN. WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO CHARGE OUR BATTERIES FOR BACKUP PURPOSE!!!!!
mspohr
Well-Known Member
I don't think that shouting at us will fix your problem.
I've been asking politely for two years. Now, when I need it, they still have not fixed it. I'm not going to "be polite" when Tesla is acting belligerently aggressive against owners despite repeated attempts to remedy the situation.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
I am sympathetic to your frustrations. You can ask nicely here or you can shout here but nobody here can fix your problems.
I would be hearing more about your accusation that Tesla is "acting belligerently (sic) aggressive against owners". Have you been assaulted?
Oh, no! That would immediately be a police matter. I'm discussing my property that was sold to me for the purpose of load shifting and backup, which I cannot control; Tesla enters my property and controls my own property to do things that I did not buy it for despite me knowing that I should set it for backup in preparation for a storm; that is the aggressive belligerance, them entering my property and controlling it against my wishes, despite them having years to do the simple matter of complying with their advertised features for the product I bought and own, and them failing to do so. The PowerWall system has remained at a low state of charge, despite me knowing to charge it ahead of a long storm, and setting it to do so as best as I could try from the software.
If these batteries were being given out for free by Tesla, I could see an argument that I do not own them. As it stands, I own them.
I knew that the rains were coming and the chances of outages would increase, so at the beginning of the week I raised my Reserve to 70% from 50%. What little solar I have been generating has been charging the Powerwalls and I now have 66% in my two Powerwalls.
We know how the system works, so you just have to use the settings they give you to make the most of what you have. Typing insistent demands on this forum in a huge font is not going to change anything.
We know how the system works, so you just have to use the settings they give you to make the most of what you have. Typing insistent demands on this forum in a huge font is not going to change anything.
Do you have software that alerts you of wind and rain storms two (or more?) days in advance?
Tesla doesn't seem to pay attention anywhere else, and they've said before they read TMC.
A few minutes ago I finally got the battery to 100%, a day after the wind and rain storm.
Actually, I recently decided that during the Winter when my solar production goes down, I'm going to move my Reserve up so that the available capacity to charge is roughly equal to the ideal daily production for that time of the season. My solar is small relative to my Powerwall capacity and I have winter shading such that my summer to winter production is 5:1. My best Summer day is about 25kWh and my lowest ideal Winter day is about 5kWh. There's just no point in letting it drain down more than it can be recharged the next day when the Peak usage is more than the solar production, guaranteeing that the SOC trend will be down if you let it. So, I will probably keep my two Powerwalls at 75% reserve until the end of January when my production should approach 7kWh/day.
It's not exactly "high tech", but yes I have a software for that:
National and Local Weather Radar, Daily Forecast, Hurricane and information from The Weather Channel and weather.com
I subscribe to rain/storm updates for my area and it emails me in advance.
IFTTT helps your apps and devices work together
Can do the same.
I was in the same boat, I saw the notice of heavy incoming weather and I bumped my reserve up to 70%.
Bigtanuki
Member
I agree completely. My setup is almost identical to yours for equipment and power generated summer and winter. My experiments in getting the best out of the current TBC have led me to the conclusion that what works best is to manipulate the reserve. When I set my reserve at 65% or higher the battery preferentially charges to at or near 100% pretty reliably. Assuming of course that the sun comes out. The higher reserve seems to lock in battery charging during the partial peak period with no power sent to the grid. I'm hoping that by only manipulating the reserve I won't force the TBC to go back to square one to learn how I like to use the system. We'll see.
I do however feel Ulmo's pain. My biggest gripe is the fantastically limited amount of actual information that Tesla supplies on how the Powerwalls operate, especially with respect to TBC. That information could be remedied with MUCH more informative software update notes. These systems aren't just some app to track widgets in my garage. The Powerwalls are being used as a hedge against unreliable power and to maximize the benefits of solar.
Come on Tesla. Give us some useful information. We can help to test your new software ideas.
Yes, you should shout at Tesla, not at the forum. In fact, I would suggest going to the press and creating a big stink in the media about this. The only thing Tesla reacts to is negative media articles. Get a really angry piece into Business Insider or Bloomberg or whatever. This is my advice.
