TOU Broken?

[Redhill_qik]

The numbers provided by Tesla are lower than the actual. What is/are NBC/SCE?

The only sheet I know of is https://www.sdge.com/sites/default/files/regulatory/11-1-21 Schedule DR-SES Total Rates Table.pdf and don’t see anything matching those acronyms.

Yes I tried using your exact numbers and it didn’t work.

While not precise, we average close to 3kwh /hr of power usage (from all sources) during our peak period so 5 hours (4-9pm).

SCE = Southern California Edison, which isn't your utility as you are with SDG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric.

NBC = Non-Bypassable Charges which are the fees that you must pay for electric imports.

All of your Buy and Sell prices are equal with Peak at $0.30, Mid-Peak at $0.29 and Off-Peak at $0.28. The algorithm knows that with a 90% efficiency for the Powerwall recharge you will not benefit from discharging in either Peak or Mid-Peak and recharging during Off-Peak.

Now, the Buy vs Sell should have a difference for the NBC, so I would recommend increasing the Peak Buy prices by $0.04 to $0.34 and decrease the Off-Peak Sell price by $0.03 to $0.25 and see if that gets you want you want.

 

[chris5639]

FYI, I'm also a SDG&E customer and am observing the same behavior and came to the same conclusion that this coincides with the Winter rates that began on 11/01. In my case, I didn't get the update until 2 days ago and when I configured my rate plan, indeed it stopped using the Powerwalls during the peak period. As an experiment I increased the buy/sell rate for peak to $0.65 last night (during peak) and it did not start using the Powerwalls. I wonder if won't react to the change until the next cycle. I can't test today as it is Friday and Tesla's algorithm is smart enough to start draining the Powerwalls even during off-peak periods because it knows that on weekends super off-peak extends to 2pm which means it should prioritize on recharging the Powerwalls from solar until 2pm. No point in selling solar at $0.08 / kWh. I should be able to test my change on Sunday night. Overall, I'm not concerned about the $0.15 I would gain in NEM credits per weekday especially given the roundtrip loss between charge/discharge. I'm more concerned about the Powerwalls sitting at "100%" for 5 days at a time. I know it isn't at 100% but it is North of 90%. I wish there was a setting that capped the battery SOC to 80% or whatever you wish.

 

[bryan995]

FYI, I'm also a SDG&E customer and am observing the same behavior and came to the same conclusion that this coincides with the Winter rates that began on 11/01. In my case, I didn't get the update until 2 days ago and when I configured my rate plan, indeed it stopped using the Powerwalls during the peak period. As an experiment I increased the buy/sell rate for peak to $0.65 last night (during peak) and it did not start using the Powerwalls. I wonder if won't react to the change until the next cycle. I can't test today as it is Friday and Tesla's algorithm is smart enough to start draining the Powerwalls even during off-peak periods because it knows that on weekends super off-peak extends to 2pm which means it should prioritize on recharging the Powerwalls from solar until 2pm. No point in selling solar at $0.08 / kWh. I should be able to test my change on Sunday night. Overall, I'm not concerned about the $0.15 I would gain in NEM credits per weekday especially given the roundtrip loss between charge/discharge. I'm more concerned about the Powerwalls sitting at "100%" for 5 days at a time. I know it isn't at 100% but it is North of 90%. I wish there was a setting that capped the battery SOC to 80% or whatever you wish.

Same problem here. SDGE. It’s 8:44 pm and the house is still pulling from the grid, during peak, with batteries at 100% …

 

[chris5639]

Same problem here. SDGE. It’s 8:44 pm and the house is still pulling from the grid, during peak, with batteries at 100% …

After making the rate change to reflect a bigger difference between off-peak and peak rates, my gateway is now powering the home from the Powerwall during peak. This supports the theory that the algorithm is not seeing enough of a difference between off-peak and peak to charge during off-peak and discharge during peak.

 

[bryan995]

Tried to muck around with the pricing. No luck. Still pulling from the grid.

Will use self-powered until Tesla gets their act together.

@tesladevs - how on earth did this pass regression??

 

[chris5639]

Tried to muck around with the pricing. No luck. Still pulling from the grid.

Will use self-powered until Tesla gets their act together.

@tesladevs - how on earth did this pass regression??

Did you make the change and wait one day? My changes didn't take effect until the next cycle.

 

[jjrandorin]

Tried to muck around with the pricing. No luck. Still pulling from the grid.

Will use self-powered until Tesla gets their act together.

@tesladevs - how on earth did this pass regression??

From what I read here, you also likely want a bigger delta between peak and off peak (bigger than the 10% loss going through the battery for sure) to induce what you want. There isnt anything saying that you have to put your "real" price delta in there. Try increasing your peak charge to 65 cents or something, then wait more than 24 hours to see if the algorithm changes.

I dont use TOU, but in effect this is what people using it with the new settings are doing.

I would also encourage this discussion to take place in the thread we now have for it, just so people can compare settings and such:

Tesla App Utility plan configuration: Multiple Peaks, Buy/Sell Behavior, etc

Starting a thread to document behavior I'm seeing using the new multiple peaks configurations (really multiple of any type). Maybe this information exists elsewhere but I couldn't find it when I first had my system go live a couple years ago, and I'm not really seeing if for the multiple peak...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Redhill_qik]

Tried to muck around with the pricing. No luck. Still pulling from the grid.

Will use self-powered until Tesla gets their act together.

@tesladevs - how on earth did this pass regression??

What exact behavior are you trying to achieve for each period? Please post screenshots from the solar, powerwall and house views so that we can see what is happening.

 

[bryan995]

I increased the delta (>10%) and it is also now +1 day since the initial settings being entered.

Things seem to be working again, 7:30 during peak, and battery is powering home again. Will continue to monitor. Perhaps the initial issue was simply needing to wait ~24 hours.

Perhaps Tesla should add a banner/warning stating that changes are not reflected / utilized until the next solar day.

 

[dailo]

Something is definitely broken with the algorithm as with TOU I can see it still pulls very small amounts from grid randomly, like 0.2kW every few minutes. When I switch it to self powered I don’t see it drawing from grid at all.

 

[KyleDay]

After making the rate change to reflect a bigger difference between off-peak and peak rates, my gateway is now powering the home from the Powerwall during peak. This supports the theory that the algorithm is not seeing enough of a difference between off-peak and peak to charge during off-peak and discharge during peak.

I had the same experience here in AZ. I manually overrode the peak import rate to get it to see a larger disparity so it’d not pull from grid during peak hours.