Time of Use Power Shifting for Powerwall 2

[gslavenburg]

I have two Powerwall's that were installed about 1.5 months ago. No solar. I can confirm that you can not currently do time-of-use or timeshifting. Powerwall version 1.6.0 and Tesla app version 3.2.0.

I have tested 'manual' time shifting by flipping the PG&E breaker off in the morning, and back in the evening when electricity gets cheap. This works, but on switch over there is a roughly 75% chance my Ethereum mining PC crashes, and a 20% chance that my cable modem looses connection and needs a reboot.

I got curious and did a scope capture of the switch over event. Here is a picture of an event where I disconnect PG&E and the wall takes over. Although fairly smooth, the brief gap was enough to crash my PC.

I've also experienced (not caught on scope) an over voltage condition when switching PG&E back on. I was outside and clearly saw the outdoor light 'blooming' when the switch over occurred.

I've had one real outage. The powerwall took over, but my PC crashed. So it's not just the breaker - real outage takeover also has a gap.

I've stopped doing manual time-shift. Although it's fun to run the whole house on the battery, the risk that I'm going to damage something makes manual unusable.

My Tesla sales person tells me time-of-use will be supported 'before the end of the year'. Until then, I have a useless fixture in my garage. A battery that is charge only, like a write-only memory...

 

[gslavenburg]

correction: the above pictured switch over did not crash my PC, but other events did. Have yet to catch a scope capture of the PC crash event power case.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I have two Powerwall's that were installed about 1.5 months ago. No solar. I can confirm that you can not currently do time-of-use or timeshifting. Powerwall version 1.6.0 and Tesla app version 3.2.0.

I have tested 'manual' time shifting by flipping the PG&E breaker off in the morning, and back in the evening when electricity gets cheap. This works, but on switch over there is a roughly 75% chance my Ethereum mining PC crashes, and a 20% chance that my cable modem looses connection and needs a reboot.

I got curious and did a scope capture of the switch over event. Here is a picture of an event where I disconnect PG&E and the wall takes over. Although fairly smooth, the brief gap was enough to crash my PC.

I've also experienced (not caught on scope) an over voltage condition when switching PG&E back on. I was outside and clearly saw the outdoor light 'blooming' when the switch over occurred.

I've had one real outage. The powerwall took over, but my PC crashed. So it's not just the breaker - real outage takeover also has a gap.

Have you considered adding a cheap UPS? It could easily power the PC, cable modem, router and prevent them from every losing power

 

[gslavenburg]

yes, I could consider several small UPS, but that sort of defeats the point. Tesla Powerwall is supposed to be a whole house UPS function - it should switch over cleanly when there is a real outage.

I'm really hoping time-of-use gets deployed with glitchless switching !

 

[abasile]

yes, I could consider several small UPS, but that sort of defeats the point. Tesla Powerwall is supposed to be a whole house UPS function - it should switch over cleanly when there is a real outage.

I'm really hoping time-of-use gets deployed with glitchless switching !

A totally seamless switchover would be nice and should be Tesla’s goal, but I am not going to sweat over a problem that’s solvable with cheap UPS’s for critical hardware. Those cheap UPS’s won’t, however, keep everything in our house running for hours during outages, something the Powerwall should be very good at.

Living where we do, it is not uncommon to have outages that last hours. We had a scheduled outage two days ago that lasted 5 hours, followed by another long outage yesterday that was caused by equipment failure. Then there are the outages caused by severe weather, plus drivers running into power poles along the main road. I wish I had had the foresight to be one of the first in line for a Powerwall 2. Of course, I am also interested in TOU load shifting.

 

[he1957]

I have noted that if the PW-2 is set to "backup-only" and the grid fails, there is a distinct delay of some time - enough to cause my computer equipment to reboot. If set to "Self-powered" the transition to battery on grid fail is almost instant - fast enough to function as a UPS.

So, if you have no Solar I'm speculating if you set the reserve setting to say 90-95% and use the "Self-powered" mode, this should allow you to charge to that value from the grid and emulate a grid failure with the response time you are looking for. I'd be interested to have feedback because I set my unit to "backup-only" for a scheduled outage and noted the above. I should have left it as it was and my equipment would have not rebooted

 

[gslavenburg]

I don't have solar. And in that case, you don't have the option to set reserve, or 'self-powered' mode. There is in fact no options/settings at all in the current app when you don't have Solar. A friend of mine jokingly suggested I should get one small solar panel... Just to unlock the controls !

 

[he1957]

I have not tried it because I do have Solar but can't you run the wizard and "fool" it into thinking you do have solar so you can set the "self-powered" mode?

 

[dlieu]

I think there is a distinction between tou use case and backup. The backup event needs detection, and I frankly am not expecting it is ever going to be done cleanly. switching to a timed tou discharge mode though should be a clean event, just like switching back to grid is clean as it is now.

So while I am forced to use the backup use case for now instead of tou, and experience the problems mentioned, I do not expect this generally be a problem. For now I did put the cyberpower ups es to critical equipment (which is probably a good idea anyway).

One thing that doesn't have solution is poweline networks that I use quite a bit. Drops connection to the office, often requires replugging all ends to fix. As the time passes, this gradually grows from mildly irritating to cursing-and-spitting infuriating. Not to mention having to stumble out at 11 pm every night in pajamas to flip the switch.

I hope Mr. Musk would be willing to treat me as a first class citizen rather sooner than later, and remove the advertised tou use case from his foster child project list. After all, Tesla did advertise this to me, happily took my money, yet neglected to mention it was not yet supported, until the very day of installation. It's OK, it's not like salespeople never sold the product they don't have before, but please oh please don't add aggravation for much longer if possible. Nothing creates a reputation of cheap talk and overpromises culture faster than these sales practices.

 

[ohmman]

A totally seamless switchover would be nice and should be Tesla’s goal, but I am not going to sweat over a problem that’s solvable with cheap UPS’s for critical hardware. Those cheap UPS’s won’t, however, keep everything in our house running for hours during outages, something the Powerwall should be very good at.

Absolutely. To date, most backup systems require a UPS for the cutover anyway. Generators, etc. have always had a lag. Even if Tesla can get it to where it works as a whole house UPS with zero time out of phase, I'll *still* use a UPS for my critical loads.

 

[gslavenburg]

I have not tried it because I do have Solar but can't you run the wizard and "fool" it into thinking you do have solar so you can set the "self-powered" mode?

What is this "wizard" and how/where do I run it?

 

[zanary]

I think there is a distinction between tou use case and backup. The backup event needs detection, and I frankly am not expecting it is ever going to be done cleanly. switching to a timed tou discharge mode though should be a clean event, just like switching back to grid is clean as it is now.

So while I am forced to use the backup use case for now instead of tou, and experience the problems mentioned, I do not expect this generally be a problem. For now I did put the cyberpower ups es to critical equipment (which is probably a good idea anyway).

One thing that doesn't have solution is poweline networks that I use quite a bit. Drops connection to the office, often requires replugging all ends to fix. As the time passes, this gradually grows from mildly irritating to cursing-and-spitting infuriating. Not to mention having to stumble out at 11 pm every night in pajamas to flip the switch.

I hope Mr. Musk would be willing to treat me as a first class citizen rather sooner than later, and remove the advertised tou use case from his foster child project list. After all, Tesla did advertise this to me, happily took my money, yet neglected to mention it was not yet supported, until the very day of installation. It's OK, it's not like salespeople never sold the product they don't have before, but please oh please don't add aggravation for much longer if possible. Nothing creates a reputation of cheap talk and overpromises culture faster than these sales practices.

When I setup my install date, the FAQ did mention the three purposes of the Powerwall and they are very clear in that Time of Use Load Shifting is not yet available.

URL = Powerwall FAQs
----
What can I use Powerwall for?
Powerwall can be used for a variety of applications, including:

• Self-Powering your Home
  With Powerwall you can use more of your solar by storing the excess energy and using it at night, which roughly doubles the amount of solar energy that directly powers your home.
• Backup Power
  Powerwall provides seamless backup power in the event of a utility power outage. For a longer outage, Powerwall can recharge from your solar power system. If necessary, you can even run your home off solar and Powerwall indefinitely.
• Home Energy Monitoring
  You can monitor your solar, Powerwall and home energy use in real time with the Tesla mobile app.
• Time-of-Use Load Shifting
  If your utility offers a time-of-use rate plan, Powerwall can charge when rates are low and use that energy during expensive times to reduce your electricity bill. This feature will be available at a later date by an over-the-air update.

----

I've been doing my own Time of Use Load Shifting like you by flipping the breaker two a day (11pm and 7am), and after 613 hours of Time of Use Load Shifting, I have not had the problems with my computers crashing.

I was told earlier on that we'll see Time of Use Load Shifting around December 31st in PowerwallIOS 2.0, and since we're at 1.9.0 already I'm hoping we'll see it in 1.5 months

Until then I'll keep doing my own Time of Use Load Shifting, but here's looking forward to it arriving with the update PowerwallOS 2.0 and the updated iOS app to support it.

 

[gslavenburg]

When my appointment was scheduled, I specifically asked about timeshifting. I was told "after the installer commissions the Powerwall, they will set it up. Customer self adjusting from the app will be available in about a month.". That was in August (2017).

After my install, Sep 12, I asked the installers. They had no idea what I was talking about. Then I called tech support and they are the first that told me time-of-use isn't supported yet.

I trust it will ultimately all get resolved. And look forward to when it does. But meanwhile, it's a very expensive deco item.

 

[Kbra]

When my appointment was scheduled, I specifically asked about timeshifting. I was told "after the installer commissions the Powerwall, they will set it up. Customer self adjusting from the app will be available in about a month.". That was in August (2017).

After my install, Sep 12, I asked the installers. They had no idea what I was talking about. Then I called tech support and they are the first that told me time-of-use isn't supported yet.

I trust it will ultimately all get resolved. And look forward to when it does. But meanwhile, it's a very expensive deco item.

You just have to convert "about a month" to Tesla time.

 

[he1957]

@gslavenburg, the Wizard is the post install/commissioning procedure invoked from the main GUI of the Energy Gateway.

One of the setup pages has "backup" or "self-consumption" check box selections. I'd say since you do not have Solar, the "backup-only" option was the only option selected. When this is done, there are very limited controls via the mobile app. eg: setting the depth of discharge for self-consumption.

Re-running the Wizard and selecting "self-consumption" and "backup" should allow you to make changes via the mobile App. As mentioned, use "self-consumption" with a reserve of say 90-95% however, with this setting the remaining percent (5-10%) will expect to be able to charge from Solar (and not grid) so this extra value will not be achieved {setting the value to 100% I would assume would imply all battery is for backup so this may override the behaviour and put the PW-2 into backup only mode].

Throwing the grid main breaker will emulate a grid failure and draw the 90-95% reserve from battery. With the PW-2 "backup" option fitted this should cause behaviour to be that of a UPS - my unit behaves like this. Resetting the grid breaker should then charge the battery up to the set reserve value from the grid.

 

[dlieu]

@gslavenburg, the Wizard is the post install/commissioning procedure invoked from the main GUI of the Energy Gateway.

One of the setup pages has "backup" or "self-consumption" check box selections. I'd say since you do not have Solar, the "backup-only" option was the only option selected. When this is done, there are very limited controls via the mobile app. eg: setting the depth of discharge for self-consumption.

Re-running the Wizard and selecting "self-consumption" and "backup" should allow you to make changes via the mobile App. [...].

(updated) Can confirm this doesn't work. It just switches PW into discharge mode until reserve is reached (after that to grid) but no self-powered menu and switch back and forth between backup and self-powered. Maybe it needs more time? dunno. I did try to re-install and re-log into tesla app.

 

[Shygar]

When my appointment was scheduled, I specifically asked about timeshifting. I was told "after the installer commissions the Powerwall, they will set it up. Customer self adjusting from the app will be available in about a month.". That was in August (2017).

After my install, Sep 12, I asked the installers. They had no idea what I was talking about. Then I called tech support and they are the first that told me time-of-use isn't supported yet.

I trust it will ultimately all get resolved. And look forward to when it does. But meanwhile, it's a very expensive deco item.

I was also told over the phone that I could be a part of the 'limited trial run' of people to use the new TOU software. I was told this without asking for it. When they came to install on 9/26, they also didn't know what I was talking about and said it should be later this year. The company is moving fast, which I like, but hard to dot all the i's and cross all the t's when doing so.

 

[he1957]

With a Solar array connected yes. Having set my PW-2 to "backup-only" (in preparation for a scheduled grid outage) was when I noticed the lag in switch-over when the grid went down. Had I had left it as it was (normal self-consumption and backup but set to self-consumption as shown in the App) I would have had "normal" UPS type protection. I re-ran the wizard to set it back to "normal" after the outage - My unit does not change the "Reserve" percentage via the App (PW-2 v1.6.0) - I can only do this via the Wizard; Having now had the unit for some 6-7 weeks the "normal" behaviour lends itself to my not really having to bother about changing any settings.

What I find "interesting" is that:

1. There is no technical documentation describing specific behaviour of this product
2. No-one from Tesla seems to contribute any technical feedback on any questions on these forums.

I do not have the time or finances to run experiments with various settings and so-forth to learn by trial and error but would be willing to if I was paid

I also have a genset connected to the house but my Electrician has recommended I disconnect the Solar array before using it. What should happen is that if the battery is not fully charged but above the Reserve it should only charge from Solar and provide house power from battery/solar as long as the battery is above the Reserve. The Reserve will only be tapped if the Grid fails. Since the genset "looks" like the Grid this should be ok.

If the battery becomes fully charged, the Solar would then try to feed the Genset - a bad idea however, I've seen mention of the PW-2 being able to shutdown the feed from the Solar but AFAIK there is nothing to signal this - ie no signal to indicate power is from genset.

I notice the PW-2 has 4 CT "inputs" (seen in the Wizard setup pages) and in my install,

CT1 is the Grid
CT2 is not connected (or installed??)
CT3 same as CT2
CT4 is Solar

By way of typical power installation and internal transfer switching one would normally connect the genset to one of the spare inputs to the PW-2 and this would be isolated from Solar to say CT2 or CT3 (I speculate these CT's (2 and 3) are for auxiliary power inputs like genset and/or secondary Solar or Wind/micro-hydro) but again, no technical documentation.

I have not had reason to start the genset since the PW-2 was installed (so far).

 

[he1957]

If anyone from Tesla is reading this post, I would also be happy to test the TOU software because I could set the PW-2 to ignore providing battery power while cooking the evening meal and then have the PW-2 provide all overnight power until the sun comes up again. ATM, I run out of battery power between 04:00 and 07:00am and this variation is caused mostly from cooking.

I have seen there are already issues identified with the v1.9 firmware so ATM I'd rather stay on v1.6.0 but of course this does not have the TOU features.

 

[he1957]

@dlieu:

"(updated) Can confirm this doesn't work. It just switches PW into discharge mode until reserve is reached (after that to grid) but no self-powered menu and switch back and forth between backup and self-powered. Maybe it needs more time? dunno. I did try to re-install and re-log into tesla app."

Yes, it will discharge from above Reserve to Reserve and then switch to grid; this is when you throw the grid breaker to switch to battery.

Reserve power from battery is only delivered when the Grid fails.

I have found that the self-test phase of the Wizard pages is needed to enable all function but do not know what happens if you do this and you do not have Solar.