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Utility Rate Plans Where are they?

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Isn't shoulder not as good as off-peak but not as bad as peak rate wise? I only have peak and off-peak so that's what I'm assuming. In a time based control senecio it would seem that it would also want to use the battery in the shoulder period and stay away in the off-peak period. But it is a multi step process to get it in all off-peak or peak. (no KISS involved ) You can't just change the AM to PM. You get a, "can't overlap error" so you have to first set the off peak to just the time ahead of the next peak. Then you set the peak and then go back and change the off peak to the rest of the day. MUCH harder than the old app. Old app you just slid the times on the time line.

As far as the reserve, my grid power is very reliable here. In the 1.5 years of solar I've gone on battery twice for 5 minutes at a time and I think it was just testing itself. So I don't use reserve for backup power at all. I go 100% reserve when I want to force the battery to charge and then go 100% time control once the battery is holding at 100%. Every peak period I'm at 100% time control. I also switched off storm watch. One of the times I got a demand charge was when storm watch went off during peak taking me off the battery. I guess somewhere in Phoenix they were having a few drops of rain, not at my house. That's when I shut off storm watch.
Yeah, ultimately we need the multi-peak windows config. To be clear, I'm using a 5am-9am peak, and then changing it to 5pm-9pm peak every day at some point after my morning peak. Everything I'm describing about shoulder and reserve is all about dealing with the draining of the PW during off-peak hours AND is important to me and my sleep schedule, and my sanity to also help me to not have to worry about checking it at 4:30 am, or worry about changing the peaks immediately at 9am and 9pm in case it decides to keep powering the house after my 9pm peak ends. It' buys me time to make the config change at my leisure sometime during the day.

As far using reserve, that kind of only comes into play for me because I'm using the Shoulder period during the day between peaks, so it helps tweak the behavior during the daytime shoulder period to limit it's use of the Powerwall during the shoulder. Otherwise like you, I we don't have many outages, I'm just using a 40-50% reserve which helps (based on my system sizing and home power usage) to AVOID power wall draining during my shoulder, not because I want a power-outage backup. And the only reason I'm using a shoulder is because of the overnight off-peak usage that has been noted in this thread.

I am ONLY using a 5am-9pm shoulder is because it's the only way I've found to help force the Powerwall not to use power during the overnight "off-peak". Except for maybe me setting my system to 100% reserve (which used to be a Backup-Only setting), and then getting up at 4:30am-ish to set it to self-service (or lower the reserve back down) and hope it transitions in time by 5am. Which I'm not going to do since using the shoulder works for me. I don't want to have to be up that early every day. So what I think it's doing is since it see's my morning peak, and then a long shoulder window that extends into the evening (again, that I'd prefer not to have to do), it then thinks it needs to save the PW and not use it during the off-peak because I am essentially telling it to be be prepared to power my home from 5am-9pm (peak + shoulder). Which I kind of in turn prevent to the degree I need during the shoulder by setting reserve. Then, at some point and at my leisure, I go and change my peak to the evening peak, and at that point it tells the PW that it still needs to be prepared the next day to power my home from 5am-9pm (shoulder +peak), so it seems to force the PW at 9pm (end of my evening peak schedule) to immediately stop using the PW even though I still have extra capacity (which I need for my morning peak), and I ensured that extra capacity because I had my reserve set somewhere between 40-50%, which I can if needed lower in preparation for my next morning peak. Hopefully that all makes sense. It's crazy we have to even consider this due to the limited config options right now.

In the past, It did not use the PW at all, never, during off-peak, it simply would NOT use power during off peak. However, I've observed what you ran into last night since a change when they redid the interface a month or so ago where it will discharge during off-peak. As best I can tell it's looking at what our "home" used in kWh's during the previous day(s) peak window (5-9am in this case) thinking that is the only peak it needs to "cover", and if it thinks we'll "hardly" use power during that window then it decides to go ahead and "offset" power usage during the off-peak too (frustrating, yes) by running the home form the PW since it "thinks" it has more than enough to cover the "little" upcoming peak window - of course not knowing we also have a second peak it will need to cover due the scheduling limitations. My shoulder window makes that upcoming window a "big" long window, not a short one that it needs to save for overnight.

Also, I think this behavior changed in anticipation of being able to schedule multiple-peaks - but they haven't rolled this all out together, so it's complicated our lives when we have two separate peaks.
 
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It's a very small sample size but setting up with just peak and off-peak worked just like the old app. No battery usage between 9p and 5a. The problem I ran into on Sunday was because it was the first time I had a shoulder period which I think, on my system caused the battery usage. The old app was very easy to move the peak period around. New app is much more involved. Here is what worked for me.

Morning Period setup after 9P
1. set off-peak 9p to 5a Then
2. set peak 5a to 9a Then
3. set off-peak 9a to 5a

Afternoon Period setup after 9a
1. set off-peak 9a to 5p Then
2. set peak 5p to 9p Then
3. set off-peak to 9p to 5p

This gives you a time line that is either peak or off-peak with no shoulder. If you don't do it in this sequence you will get overlap errors.

I love my solar setup hardware wise, I think it's one of the best out there. But to be frank the app sucks, it has been the weak link which is surprising for what's suppose to be a tech savvy company. Maybe when they roll out all the rate plans it will be wonderful but why that would be something new??? I don't think split rate plans is a recent phenomena. This is my 2nd go around with this BS, I can't imagine people that have been doing this for years.
 
Morning Period setup after 9P
1. set off-peak 9p to 5a Then
2. set peak 5a to 9a Then
3. set off-peak 9a to 5a

Afternoon Period setup after 9a
1. set off-peak 9a to 5p Then
2. set peak 5p to 9p Then
3. set off-peak to 9p to 5p
I’m able to switch from the AM peak window to the PM Peak window by just changing the am/pm values for the peak, two changes and save. Not sure if this is simpler than how you’re doing it, but seems fairly simple. Regardless I agree we shouldn’t have to do this in the first place. Video/GIF example attached.

1E5F63F2-F075-46D9-8F90-FC82C2501ED7.gif
 
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Just switching am to pm gives you a shoulder period. My system will discharge the battery during shoulder period. Look at my pic on post #35. Everything is yellow (peak) or blue (off peak). On my system the red shoulder period is where the battery was discharging Sunday night / Monday morning. My sample size has doubled, both samples did not discharge between 9p and 5a which you can expand the sample size to 6 months last year with the old app where it was easy to change peak period without bring in a shoulder period.
 
Just switching am to pm gives you a shoulder period. My system will discharge the battery during shoulder period. Look at my pic on post #35. Everything is yellow (peak) or blue (off peak). On my system the red shoulder period is where the battery was discharging Sunday night / Monday morning. My sample size has doubled, both samples did not discharge between 9p and 5a which you can expand the sample size to 6 months last year with the old app where it was easy to change peak period without bring in a shoulder period.

Interesting, it must be the difference between how our systems are sized. I only have 4.1k of PV, but 4 Powerwalls (which is what I calculated to need to insure the fastest pay-back period based on what our home uses in summer and winter). So by just setting the off-peak 9pm to 5am, which forces a shoulder between my two peaks so I never have to change the off-peak and shoulder during the winter, but still it results in no overnight PW drain, and even during the day between peaks very little PW drain. In fact, since mid-October I seem to be back to 100% SOC by noon or earlier (between peaks). I'd prefer it be smart enough to know it has more than enough to cover my peaks and simply run the house with any extra solar at that point - which is around 60-75% SOC for my system in the winter, vs wasting PV to charge the PW to 100% when I don't need the much to cover peaks in the winter.

All this does point to how complex it must be to program these systems since we all have different homes, different number of Electric cars, different usage, and different PV and PW sizes and configurations.
 
I’ve been running automated power wall scheduling for a couple of years to deal with the SRP TOU periods and to have full control over my PWs to zero out peak use and demand fees. Currently using Darwin’s PowerWall Manager App, Hubitat Hub and Windows Store Tesla Token Generator (only manual process which is to generate a new token every 45 days).

Interested to see how the new rate plan features help with all this.
 
Is the Darwin's PowerWall manager a script that runs on the Habitat Hub? I haven't found anywhere to download the app.
App code and info/instructions here: Tesla Powerwall Manager app for SmartThings (and Hubitat) Hubs - DarwinsDen.com

Note, occasionally things break due to changes by Tesla. For instance, currently the “Auth for Tesla” iOS app isn’t generating correct tokens but I am using the previously mentioned Windows app.

Otherwise it works well. Set and forget mostly but I also have a demand manager that helps me control demand in the rare instance that something breaks down. Not to mention the average demand plan so I can occasionally go hog wild on the demand (multiple cloudy/rain says) without much change to my bill.

There is also another member that has built python code for Raspberry Pi which I successfully got working too but Darwin’s is more convenient for me to make adjustments or update the code: GitHub - fkhera/powerwallCloud
 
While we're all waiting with bated breath I was wondering if anyone had put any thought into how one might deal with programming demand changes (e.g. a high per kW charge based on max grid draw in 30 min within a month)? I don't believe this is explicitly covered in standard capabilities but happy to be proved wrong... Clearly the aim is not to draw from the grid during peak (something that current algorithm does well in managing) but I wonder if the limited differential in kWh between peak and off peak and net metering the algorithm may not put enough weight on preventing peak grid draw...

Winter rate structure with SRP here in AZ:
  • On Peak (5am-9am & 5pm-9pm): $0.0457 / kWh* with net metering
  • Off Peak (all other times): $0.0417 / kWh* with net metering
  • On Peak demand charge (max 30min utilization in billing month): $3.49 / kW
In programing the rate plan one could ignore the demand charge but I wonder if the fact that peak rates are only 10% higher whether algorithm may "ignore" the fact it's a peak period. Alternatively one could program a higher buy rate during peak. Either way any bill calculation in app would be wrong but not too concerned about that...

* Note for those of you with SRP these are new increased rates effective for November billing cycle - I don't believe I had been informed of these changes and only discovered this when I went out the website to check I had accurate info.
 
You don't have to put the real Peak rate in the app. If you want it to consider the Peak energy to be at a higher premium, you could just put in a higher number like $0.25/kWh instead of $0.05/kWh that you actually pay.

The bigger difference that I would want in the "Arizona situation" is the ability to zero grid draw during Peak instead of exporting all solar and powering the house only from batteries. This means that I would want the solar to go to house loads if available during Peak hours instead of being exported. Probably a check box for "Minimize Peak Demand" would be appropriate to add to the UI and algorithm.
 
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* Note for those of you with SRP these are new increased rates effective for November billing cycle - I don't believe I had been informed of these changes and only discovered this when I went out the website to check I had accurate info.
They had announced the increases awhile ago, about the same time as APS announced theirs except APS did it right then and there. SRP said it was happening in November. I think it was sometime after the 1st of the year. They took forever to update the rate charts. I called them in October and the guy I talked to was confused as to why he couldn't see the new rate chart. First time I finally saw it was when the Nov bill came in (my billing date is the 4th of the month so my Nov bill is really Oct usage). My spread sheet is usually within pennies. Nov came in significantly off of my spread sheet so I searched AGAIN for the rate sheets. When I plugged in the new numbers my bill was 1 cent less then my spread sheet. It's hard to account for all the net metering.
 
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They had announced the increases awhile ago, about the same time as APS announced theirs except APS did it right then and there. SRP said it was happening in November. I think it was sometime after the 1st of the year. They took forever to update the rate charts. I called them in October and the guy I talked to was confused as to why he couldn't see the new rate chart. First time I finally saw it was when the Nov bill came in (my billing date is the 4th of the month so my Nov bill is really Oct usage). My spread sheet is usually within pennies. Nov came in significantly off of my spread sheet so I searched AGAIN for the rate sheets. When I plugged in the new numbers my bill was 1 cent less then my spread sheet. It's hard to account for all the net metering.

Now that you mention it I do remember some press articles earlier in the year but don't remember any official customer communication. Have not received resent bill yet so I'm sure, like you, I will find it does not match my spreadsheet!
 
I'm also at 21:35.3. The magic number is 21:39. When I called and talked to someone at Tesla customer service, they said nothing would happen until it was at 21:39 and even then it could take awhile to get their rate plans to your area. As scotsmanswan said, I don't care about the preprogramed rate presets, just give me the ability to program multiple peak periods on my own.

Several weeks running the latest APP and PW firmware and still no ability to add utility rate plans or a second peak period.
What is your firmware? If you're at 21:35.3 . . . well. If you're at 21:39, then that's troublesome.
 
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