You may be the only one with that problem because not many people use hybrid inverters with Powerwalls. I don't really see an easy solution because you have to measure that circuit to monitor solar production. It is only one circuit, right? Another solution may be to put new but much smaller lead batteries on the Outback inverter(s). Are you able to prevent the Outback system from discharging during normal use?
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Time-Based Control?
- Thread starter powersaver
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- Powerwall Tesla Energy
There actually could be a very easy solution from Tesla, the Powerwall clearly knows the direction of the powerflow (they correctly show it). It's just a small bit of additional logic to control code that determines how much power to pull from the inverters. They just need to have it ignore negative power flows during off peak hours. They clear already have control logic that determines the output of the inverter (how else do they do load following?) based on the reading of the betters (house load and production).
I might try to fix the batteries just to get rid of the annoyance on the Outback but there is no money that. The 2kWh or of extra round trips probably cost me only about $0.10 a day.
I'm hoping someday solar connected systems can charge off peak. To maximize savings I lowered my reserves to 40% but this means I don't have as much backup power right now.
ChrisMPK
Member
Has anyone tried contacting Tesla to activate TBC? My installation finished in January, got PTO a week ago. I've been on 1.15.8 since I commissioned the battery
My install was in Jan. I contacted Tesla several times. I don't know if it had any effect. Based on what others experienced PTO doesn't seem to be a factor. I was told everyone in California should have it by the end of May. I got TBC on somewhere between late May 31 and June 1. I would call just to make sure they know about you.
ChrisMPK
Member
What contact info do you have for Tesla PW2 support? I only have my installers contact info and they are useless.
Based on a couple of interactions with Tesla Powerwall support about issues with TBC, I'm not sure they are that helpful either. Furthermore, I suspect they changed my setup password because I unwisely mentioned I'm using it to get around the 1 hour lag when changing settings on the app. If you call them and the name of the support rep is Karen, I would recommend hanging up and trying again. I am pretty sure she told me things that are simply untrue, such as that overheating is possibly what caused my Powerwalls to discharge today (starting at midnight) during off-peak even though set to cost-savings mode.
Heck, I just found a quirk in the PW2 algorithm. If you don't set the shoulder (i.e. only peak and off-peak), PW2 doesn't charge during off-peak period from the grid. Strange indeed.
I've summarised found to date quirkiness here: Tukang Ngoprek: Powerwall 2 Time Base Control Algorithm
I've summarised found to date quirkiness here: Tukang Ngoprek: Powerwall 2 Time Base Control Algorithm
Honestly, I think cost-saving mode is probably just broken right now. For me, it works fine four days a week. I have off-peak, peak and shoulder during the week, but only shoulder on weekends. Last Friday, the powerwall stayed on standby during the whole peak period. On Saturday it stayed on standby during the off-peak and then started charging during the shoulder period. On Sunday, it started discharging at midnight (off-peak) and discharged until it hit the backup reserve.
It's interesting that you're seeing issues with just the two rates on a given day too. Maybe I'll try setting one of the shoulder hours to peak instead to see if the algorithm behaves more sensibly. That doesn't explain the Friday weirdness, though.
It's interesting that you're seeing issues with just the two rates on a given day too. Maybe I'll try setting one of the shoulder hours to peak instead to see if the algorithm behaves more sensibly. That doesn't explain the Friday weirdness, though.
I've had TBC for basically four full days, two weekend (partial peak and off peak only) and two weekdays (off peak, partial and peak). First quick observation is you can't have too much battery. I think I'm going to wish I had more battery. Over the weekend during the hot Saturday the system used 60% of two Powerwalls because of air conditioning to minimize partial peak purchases. Sunday was milder so it was easy. I'm currently running in cost saving mode. During the two weekdays so far the pattern has been charge from solar during the off peak and then it looks like Tesla is trying to predict my usage (don't know how much they factor weather in) but on Monday the PW didn't discharge to offset my load (so all solar could be sold) until well into the partial peak, it continued discharging the peak hours and nailed it almost perfectly in the second partial peak period when it stopped just as the period ended. Today it started discharging into the partial peak much earlier but just barely made through peak period. As the summer heats up will it adjust and stop discharging during the partial peak so that it can cover me during the peak or will I need to switch to balanced?
I'm in PG&E land with E-6. I've planning on switching to EV-A but I may to rerun the analysis based how the Powerwall behaves. E-6 gives more daylight off peak hours which matter a lot right now since the PW doesn't charge from the grid. I have about 13.4 kW of solar (10.9 kW of it over 16 years old so it has degraded)
Is there a way to get Tesla to show the data they have beyond the buckets they have on the app (today, yesterday, week, month year)?
I'm in PG&E land with E-6. I've planning on switching to EV-A but I may to rerun the analysis based how the Powerwall behaves. E-6 gives more daylight off peak hours which matter a lot right now since the PW doesn't charge from the grid. I have about 13.4 kW of solar (10.9 kW of it over 16 years old so it has degraded)
Is there a way to get Tesla to show the data they have beyond the buckets they have on the app (today, yesterday, week, month year)?
A Tesla Powerwall rep told me that they don't expect Cost Saving to work well for people that don't have significant Off-Peak solar generation. For me, on PG&E EV rate, that means that Cost Saving works well on weekends (mostly Off-Peak and only 4 hrs Peak), but is completely useless on weekdays because there is essentially no Off-Peak generation. Balanced will usually keep your batteries at the full end of the range because during Part-Peak it will charge with All Solar when the generation is approximately the same as the household usage, then will change to Surplus Solar when the solar is significantly more than the household usage. This usually allows the solar to fill the batteries completely before the Peak period starts. Starting the Peak period full will be the best way to make sure that you have enough energy to make it through the Peak period without hitting your Reserve. I am very happy with how Balanced is working on my system with Powerwall firmware 1.15.1.
The Tesla app will not show historical intraday data beyond Yesterday. The only way to keep it is to set up one of the utilities that connects directly to the Powerwall and downloads and saves the data for you.
The E6 rate allows significant off-peak solar on weekends, so it would be nice to get it working. The one time it worked well for me, the batteries charged up to 100% during off-peak on the weekend, then discharged during the shoulder period each day. On Monday, there was enough surplus energy to discharge during almost the entire shoulder period in addition to the peak period.
Honestly, I don't see why off-peak solar generation should have any impact on Cost-Saving mode. As far as I can tell, the algorithm is to target an intermediate state of charge during shoulder periods (seems to be 80% with my reserve set to 50%). It'll discharge if it's above that, charge if below. During peak, it'll always discharge and during off-peak always charge.
Given my recent experiences with Powerwall support, I am suspicious that the explanation about off-peak solar generation may have been just made up to explain the bugs with Cost-Savings that they haven't been able to fix yet. I don't see how lack of off-peak solar generation could possibly cause discharging at midnight, for example. In my case, the Powerwall support rep told me that cooling problems may be causing that, which makes no sense to me.
I really wish Tesla would just allow us to configure things more manually instead making these opaque modes. If I could allocate 35% of capacity to peak usage, 50% to backup and the rest to shoulder usage, I think the Powerwalls would do exactly what I want.
Honestly, I don't see why off-peak solar generation should have any impact on Cost-Saving mode. As far as I can tell, the algorithm is to target an intermediate state of charge during shoulder periods (seems to be 80% with my reserve set to 50%). It'll discharge if it's above that, charge if below. During peak, it'll always discharge and during off-peak always charge.
Given my recent experiences with Powerwall support, I am suspicious that the explanation about off-peak solar generation may have been just made up to explain the bugs with Cost-Savings that they haven't been able to fix yet. I don't see how lack of off-peak solar generation could possibly cause discharging at midnight, for example. In my case, the Powerwall support rep told me that cooling problems may be causing that, which makes no sense to me.
I really wish Tesla would just allow us to configure things more manually instead making these opaque modes. If I could allocate 35% of capacity to peak usage, 50% to backup and the rest to shoulder usage, I think the Powerwalls would do exactly what I want.
Today I think TBC correctly deferred discharging during the morning part peak because it had enough energy left to discharge during the evening part peak. If I had more peak load it would have been able to use that energy during the peak period. It will be interesting to see what TBC does when it I get a warm enough day where I run the air conditioning during a weekday when there is peak pricing.
I also wish that there could be simpler options similar to what @cwied suggested. I'm also sympathetic to the possibility of a "larger" good (to the grid) of a "smarter" discharge policy. I think the real financial benefit will come when Tesla starts giving us the option of the making our Powerwalls a part of the large virtual power plant.
I also wish that there could be simpler options similar to what @cwied suggested. I'm also sympathetic to the possibility of a "larger" good (to the grid) of a "smarter" discharge policy. I think the real financial benefit will come when Tesla starts giving us the option of the making our Powerwalls a part of the large virtual power plant.
I called them to get a firmware update and that worked after several transfers to various folks before they got the Powerwall team on the line. Once I was talking to the correct people at Tesla they were all "oh, yah, that IS an old firmware - let me fix that for you". By that evening my PWs had been updated. Took a few more weeks, but today I just noticed I now have time based control as well.
Turned it on and am starting in cost-savings mode. Will see how that works.
How easy is it to set this up? Are these 3rd party services like TeslaFi for the car?
I think I just encountered the bug with the cost-savings mode. My powerwalls are sitting at 99% and didn't discharge during the peak. I believe @cwied has E-6 like I do.
I used to use a Outback Radian but sold it when I put that house on the rental market. I would have kept and moved t to my new home, but Outback has basically walked away from AC coupling. In the end even though I ran it at close to 60 volts with a used Nissan pack, the lack of support for AC coupling and inefficiency of low voltage DC source made it not a good long term solution for me. I am on a wait list for a Powerwall or two but may defer that purchase and see how the market evolves.
I do also have PG&E E6. Ironically, my Powerwalls did the right thing today. I did add a half-hour peak period on weekends to see whether the behavior would change, though, so that might have made a difference.
Your Yesterday chart matches my experience with Cost Saving.
- During Off-Peak All Solar goes to batteries
- During morning Part-Peak Surplus Solar goes to grid, evening Part-Peak net consumption comes from battery.
- During Peak All Solar goes to grid, batteries power home.
If you want Surplus Solar to go to the battery during Part-Peak, then use Balanced.