TOU - Off Peak charging

[Solar1920]

I've only recently had the Powerwall installed and so far very pleased with results.

Going forward to maximise my savings i would like to set it up so that it fully charges overnight during my off peak rate.

I know the cost saving mode will charge during off peak but is dependant on the Powerwalls AI algorithom so would be random.

I believe at present my goal is not possible, am i correct?

 

[zanary]

I thought Self-Powered is what you are looking for, right?

Self-Powered | Tesla

 

[miimura]

I've only recently had the Powerwall installed and so far very pleased with results.

Going forward to maximise my savings i would like to set it up so that it fully charges overnight during my off peak rate.

I know the cost saving mode will charge during off peak but is dependant on the Powerwalls AI algorithom so would be random.

I believe at present my goal is not possible, am i correct?

Even in UK where Off-Grid charging is available, you cannot force it to charge to full during Off-Peak unless you have the Backup Gateway (GW2 in UK) and toggle it back and forth to Backup Mode. It is really not designed to work that way. Maybe we will get more controls in the future, but right now we mostly have to depend on the Tesla algorithms.

 

[dandrewk]

It's the regulatory laws in the USA. We get a 30% tax credit for the wall (and solar), so regulators don't want solar/wall users to parlay that credit into power-arbitrage to take advantage of TOU rates. The only time we will ever see PWs being recharged via the grid is during Storm Watch periods. IOW, we have not control over it, and probably never will.

 

[Solar1920]

That’s what I thought. It’s not possible, (without changing to backup mode and I won’t be staying up till 1am to do that!).

Here’s hoping the rumours of the new features is true!

This issue aside I’m impressed with it so far.

 

[JohnRatsey]

I'm in the same boat (UK without a backup gateway) and use the cost-saving mode. I'm living in the hope that Tesla will release an update with improved user controls before winter arrives having watched my battery show insufficient intelligence last winter. If not, then I'll be sending yet more emails highlighting where Tesla's algorithms are costing me money. The underlying problem is that off-peak charging decisions only use what has happened in the past and do not consider any weather (ie solar generation forecast). That would be fine if tomorrow's weather will be the same as today, which might be the case at Tesla HQ but rarely works in the UK. It's possible to limit the amount of off-peak charging (if a sunny day is forecast after several gloomy ones) by reducing the off-peak period but there's no way (without the backup option) to tell the battery to fill up because low solar generation is expected.

 

[Solar1920]

I’ll be changing to the Octopus Go TOU tariff soon and will be depending on the off peak charging as we go into winter, so thanks for the tip for varying the off peak time value.

Another feature that would be welcome is being able to set a period for the powerwall to discharge to the grid to take advantage of export tariffs.

These things I would think should be fairly easy to implement for Tesla, but my feeling is they are reluctant to introduce them for fear customers would “over utilise” the batteries and shorten their life span and maybe introduce warranty claims.

 

[MarkJ]

We need to be able to tell the Powerwall to charge to x% during off peak rather than it trying to be clever, and failing!

If you use my referral we each get £50 and I'll give my £50 to a charity of your choice:
Octopus
Split £100 | Octopus Energy

 

[JohnRatsey]

I’ll be changing to the Octopus Go TOU tariff soon and will be depending on the off peak charging as we go into winter, so thanks for the tip for varying the off peak time value.

Another feature that would be welcome is being able to set a period for the powerwall to discharge to the grid to take advantage of export tariffs.

These things I would think should be fairly easy to implement for Tesla, but my feeling is they are reluctant to introduce them for fear customers would “over utilise” the batteries and shorten their life span and maybe introduce warranty claims.

I'm with Octopus and was wondering about the Go tariff. 4 hours of cheap electricity is just about enough to charge the PW and the pricing is much more attractive than E7. And the Octopus Outgoing tariff would help justify the cost of the PW if the export period could be controlled.

Battery wear and the warranty is already covered by Tesla. In addition to the nominal 10 years there's a limit of 37.8 MWh throughput. I recall working out that this equivalent to one charge/discharge cycle per day. At the moment my PW has an easy life and must be around half of Tesla's assumption so there's capacity to do some extra work through an early evening peak discharge at top rate and early morning cheap charge. It would earn me some extra cash and help the National Grid.

 

[Solar1920]

@JohnRatsey what email did you use to contact Tesla regarding this issue, i'd like to add my voice.

 

[JohnRatsey]

@JohnRatsey what email did you use to contact Tesla regarding this issue, i'd like to add my voice.

The address used for my previous correspondence is [email protected] .

 

[JohnRatsey]

And I've had a response to my latest enquiry:

"For the time being, the new App improvements have not been released yet. We are still recording all the feedback we receive and logging feature requests."

There's no confirmation that improvements are in the pipeline but it must help if users keep adding to the list of requests.

 

[Solar1920]

Oh dear, that doesn't sound too promising.

I've sent my email, we'll see what they say.

 

[Solar1920]

Had a reply from Tesla, basically saying these features are not available yet, but they have been sent them on for me as a feature request.