Dborn
Confirmed
Ok. Just got it after a reboot of my iPad. However, no option to charge from the grid. WE NEED THIS FOR CLOUDY DAYS HERE IN AUSTRALIA
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Time-Based Control?
- Thread starter powersaver
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- Powerwall Tesla Energy
There is no specific "charge from grid" controls in the app. It will do it automatically depending on how you configure the Time-based control.
I'm in Sydney, have PV and battery, and early yesterday evening set it to "Cost Saving". As soon as it got to 10pm (the start of my off-peak period), my battery started charging from the grid. It stopped at 17% so I guess the Tesla algorithm believes there will be enough sun today, and the consumption low enough, that I only needed a 17% pre-charge to cover my peak period this afternoon/evening.
We will see..!
We could use it in Colorado too. While we have over 300 days of sunshine per year, sometimes we have weeks of snow in the winter. Being able to charge from the grid would help us prepare for a blizzard and let us continue as normal if the grid goes down due to have snow.
According to a recent post on whirlpool.net.au, it looks like charging from the grid is available in Australia with the new TOU capability.
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2684893&p=-1&#bottom
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2684893&p=-1&#bottom
My first two days on Time Based Control have been disappointing for me. Tonight, it hit the reserve during the Peak TOU period because it had not charged itself enough during the Part-Peak period, instead letting the solar during that time go to export. I had to manually lower the Reserve in order for it to power the house through the last two hours of the Peak period. See graphs below.
If you look at yesterday, I turned on TBC and it took effect at 9:30am. Prior to that it was taking all the solar to charge the batteries. At 9:30 it started exporting the surplus solar, but it did do a little charging too. It started powering the house from battery when the Peak period started at 2pm and stops discharging at 9pm. Perfect. The problem is that it did not take the opportunity to charge to full before 2pm, so it ended at ~56% IIRC, when I had the Reserve set to 50%. Then today, starting from a low SOC, it still didn't take all the energy it could before the Peak period started. Also, what's with the profile of the charging that it is doing around noon? What kind of algorithm is that?
If you look at yesterday, I turned on TBC and it took effect at 9:30am. Prior to that it was taking all the solar to charge the batteries. At 9:30 it started exporting the surplus solar, but it did do a little charging too. It started powering the house from battery when the Peak period started at 2pm and stops discharging at 9pm. Perfect. The problem is that it did not take the opportunity to charge to full before 2pm, so it ended at ~56% IIRC, when I had the Reserve set to 50%. Then today, starting from a low SOC, it still didn't take all the energy it could before the Peak period started. Also, what's with the profile of the charging that it is doing around noon? What kind of algorithm is that?
Dborn
Confirmed
So, the system is supposed to learn your usage, and adapt accordingly over the next few days? This is gonna be interesting!!!
I did a feedback survey over the phone with a lady from the energy team in SF this afternoon. I did point out to her that most all Australians would want the ability to control grid charging of the battery to cope with cloudy days etc. No algorithm is going to pick up a weather forecast! She said she would pass this over to the time of use team. So, at least I have managed to get a line directly into the team.
I did a feedback survey over the phone with a lady from the energy team in SF this afternoon. I did point out to her that most all Australians would want the ability to control grid charging of the battery to cope with cloudy days etc. No algorithm is going to pick up a weather forecast! She said she would pass this over to the time of use team. So, at least I have managed to get a line directly into the team.
Hopefully, it'll "learn" to charge a bit more before 2pm. I'm happy to see the progress, though, particularly as our PWs (still lacking the TBC feature) have been spending most of their time between 80% and 100% charge. This time of year, I'd prefer to cycle them at lower charge levels for more optimal battery longevity, and exporting more to the grid would facilitate this. (I'd still like to have a "max target charge" parameter, though.)
I wonder if "Balanced" would be better? From the table Powerwall Modes of Operation with Solar it seems that the Shoulder times cancel each other out, as they are both on charging and discharging priority.
I had not seen that information before. Did they update those pages recently? In any case, the way I read it, during the shoulder period, Cost Saving should behave like Self-Powered. My system clearly is not doing that. For a period in the morning, it is charging from All Solar, then it charges at some level less than Excess Solar, leading to significant export. On weekdays, my nominal value of solar is equal to the shoulder rate since I don't have any generation during Off-Peak. It doesn't make sense to cycle the batteries more during the shoulder period with Net Metering and it doesn't matter when during the shoulder period that you export. So, to me the logical thing to do during the shoulder period is charge with All Solar until the battery reaches some relative SOC between the Reserve and 100%, then charge from Excess Solar until full, then export Excess Solar. This is really not rocket science and trying to make it "Smart" is just going to lead to customer disappointment in certain situations. However, I will grant that people who have low feed-in tariffs would benefit from it being a little more Smart like charging from the grid when the weather forecast indicates low solar generation for the following day.
The only way Balanced would be better for me is if it didn't have the apparent bugs that my system has on Cost Saving.
Here are the numbers that go with my two graphs in Post #46:
"Yesterday"
Home Usage = 20.1 kWh
Solar Energy = 20.2 kWh
From PW = 7.3 kWh
To PW = 2.4 kWh
From Grid = 10.6 kWh
To Grid = 14.5 kWh
"Today"
Home Usage = 21.8 kWh
Solar Energy = 17 kWh
From PW = 8.4 kWh
To PW = 5.9 kWh
From Grid = 11 kWh
To Grid = 8.7 kWh
"Yesterday"
Home Usage = 20.1 kWh
Solar Energy = 20.2 kWh
From PW = 7.3 kWh
To PW = 2.4 kWh
From Grid = 10.6 kWh
To Grid = 14.5 kWh
"Today"
Home Usage = 21.8 kWh
Solar Energy = 17 kWh
From PW = 8.4 kWh
To PW = 5.9 kWh
From Grid = 11 kWh
To Grid = 8.7 kWh
Yeah, it seems like it was cancelling out the Shoulder period with charging and discharging, leaving you with no charge. Since this is new, you might want to try Balanced for a day or so to see if that changes. Or eliminate your Shoulder in the morning so it charges up to the Peak. If the battery gets full before the Peak during the "hidden" morning Shoulder, it would export all the solar.
My system is not yet installed, so I can't try it now, but will soon...
My system is not yet installed, so I can't try it now, but will soon...
It just appeared in the app. I don't think there's anything an end user can do to get it sooner. Don't be too jealous. I turned off TBC this afternoon so that I would be able to maintain my 50% reserve for the storm coming through starting tonight. My solar generation today was too low to allow it to export during Peak hours, so I put it on Self-Powered and now that Peak just ended, I'm at 53%.
Here in the UK I'm still waiting for TOU to be activated for my system. I called support recently and asked them why the delay as I'm on their early adopters list. After checking with their engineers I was told that it's because my external temperature is still a bit low (my powerwall is outside) and they want to avoid erratic behaviour in this soft roll-out.
I've checked their support pages on the GB site and it does look as though we'll be getting charging from the grid as part of the TOU functionality. This is just what I need as my peak usage is high and not always sunny in UK...
I've checked their support pages on the GB site and it does look as though we'll be getting charging from the grid as part of the TOU functionality. This is just what I need as my peak usage is high and not always sunny in UK...
Still waiting for my TBC to appear. I have version 1.15.1 on PW2 and 3.3.4 on Andriod phone.
Not a big deal for me at the moment as I usually have about 60-70% charge left overnight on Self-Powered mode.
But, hopefully I will get TBC by late Autumn (mid May) as that's when solar production starts to decline and heating loads increase.
I've had the PW2 since 11 Dec 2017. So far, it's working pretty good, very happy with it. Have had no problems. Every now and again I do notice a quick glitch and it goes into backup mode for about 1 minute.
As some have posted, I've also noticed that 5kW is being imported for about a minute and I know that I have only the lights on and maybe the TV.
However, I would like to pose the question, given that charging from grid on off-peak rates will result in a loss of stored energy (10-15%), is it not better to reserve the battery and use the grid to run loads on off-peak grid? (I'm on ToU - off peak starts at 10pm, concludes 7am M-F and then off-peak all weekend). So, for all weekend, I should set my battery 100% reserved and use solar/off-peak grid for any consumption. That way, the battery is not cycled as much during off-peak electricity times and get longer life (meaning battery capacity in 10 years is preserved better?). Economically, my ToU off peak is $0.1197 and FiT is $0.111. So the parity is almost evened out. Except that I will lose 10-15% of stored energy if I were to capture all my solar into the battery So, would it be better off to use solar on weekends as much as possible, let the PW2 charge up for Monday and use off-peak grid overnight on Friday/Saturday/Sunday night. Remember my off-peak starts 10pm Friday and finishes 7am Monday. So, I get off-peak for 57 hours straight!
I'm trying to find the right balance between battery cycling, off-peak usage (either from grid or battery) and reserving battery for peak/shoulder usage. At the moment, I'm running 100% self-powered mode and 0% reserve. My last electricity bill (91 days) showed that I used 23kWh from peak, 32Wh from shoulder and 110kWh from off-peak. I exported 650kWh to grid. But I self-consumed 1400kWh. Total solar generation was about 2050kWh. So, my grid usage was about 10% of total consumption. Not bad, I think. However, bear in mind the first 14 days of the bill, I did not have the Powerwall, so some of that usage predates the Powerwall being installed. I don't know if I can get any better than that? Hopefully my next bill will reflect differently (better) as I would have had the Powerwall in operation for the whole billing cycle then (bill due end of May).
It appears that getting grid down to 0% is near impossible because of the delayed reaction time of the PW2 to changing loads. At the moment, I am averaging about 1kWh peak/2kWh shoulder/6kWh off peak per week from the grid. I think solar is migitating the peak and shoulder times as solar would be instantaneous to any load present. During night off-peak, there is no solar and the Powerwall does not react fast enough to offset the load, so that could explain why off-peak usage is higher. I have not yet run the Powerwall to 0% since it has been installed. But won't be load before that happens when the winter season hits in about 6 weeks time. April has been so warm lately (I'm in Richmond NSW, AU) and if the trend continues, could be a while before I start using heating. So, the Powerwall is running low basic loads like lighting, TV, fridge, Internet router, the occasional burst from Microwave and cooking. Hot water is solar driven.
Not a big deal for me at the moment as I usually have about 60-70% charge left overnight on Self-Powered mode.
But, hopefully I will get TBC by late Autumn (mid May) as that's when solar production starts to decline and heating loads increase.
I've had the PW2 since 11 Dec 2017. So far, it's working pretty good, very happy with it. Have had no problems. Every now and again I do notice a quick glitch and it goes into backup mode for about 1 minute.
As some have posted, I've also noticed that 5kW is being imported for about a minute and I know that I have only the lights on and maybe the TV.
However, I would like to pose the question, given that charging from grid on off-peak rates will result in a loss of stored energy (10-15%), is it not better to reserve the battery and use the grid to run loads on off-peak grid? (I'm on ToU - off peak starts at 10pm, concludes 7am M-F and then off-peak all weekend). So, for all weekend, I should set my battery 100% reserved and use solar/off-peak grid for any consumption. That way, the battery is not cycled as much during off-peak electricity times and get longer life (meaning battery capacity in 10 years is preserved better?). Economically, my ToU off peak is $0.1197 and FiT is $0.111. So the parity is almost evened out. Except that I will lose 10-15% of stored energy if I were to capture all my solar into the battery So, would it be better off to use solar on weekends as much as possible, let the PW2 charge up for Monday and use off-peak grid overnight on Friday/Saturday/Sunday night. Remember my off-peak starts 10pm Friday and finishes 7am Monday. So, I get off-peak for 57 hours straight!
I'm trying to find the right balance between battery cycling, off-peak usage (either from grid or battery) and reserving battery for peak/shoulder usage. At the moment, I'm running 100% self-powered mode and 0% reserve. My last electricity bill (91 days) showed that I used 23kWh from peak, 32Wh from shoulder and 110kWh from off-peak. I exported 650kWh to grid. But I self-consumed 1400kWh. Total solar generation was about 2050kWh. So, my grid usage was about 10% of total consumption. Not bad, I think. However, bear in mind the first 14 days of the bill, I did not have the Powerwall, so some of that usage predates the Powerwall being installed. I don't know if I can get any better than that? Hopefully my next bill will reflect differently (better) as I would have had the Powerwall in operation for the whole billing cycle then (bill due end of May).
It appears that getting grid down to 0% is near impossible because of the delayed reaction time of the PW2 to changing loads. At the moment, I am averaging about 1kWh peak/2kWh shoulder/6kWh off peak per week from the grid. I think solar is migitating the peak and shoulder times as solar would be instantaneous to any load present. During night off-peak, there is no solar and the Powerwall does not react fast enough to offset the load, so that could explain why off-peak usage is higher. I have not yet run the Powerwall to 0% since it has been installed. But won't be load before that happens when the winter season hits in about 6 weeks time. April has been so warm lately (I'm in Richmond NSW, AU) and if the trend continues, could be a while before I start using heating. So, the Powerwall is running low basic loads like lighting, TV, fridge, Internet router, the occasional burst from Microwave and cooking. Hot water is solar driven.