The TRUTH About Tesla Powerwalls (2yr Review)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- Go to buyraycon.com/... for up to 20% off your order! Brought to you by Raycon. Today I share a "hack" that I've been perfecting for over 2 years since I got my Tesla Powerwall. The net result is paying nearly nothing for electricity.
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I guess we are lucky here in Albuquerque, NM. We paid $13,500 for 10 panels on our roof. NM has over 300 days of sun a year. We generate an over abundance of energy and the excess goes into the grid. We also receive a credit. Our monthly bill is $8.20 which is just the fees and taxes.
West Texas.. Arizona.. pretty much the whole SW of the country, gets this huge benefit C: Anyone in the southwest NOT going solar.. and there are a lot.. are throwing money down the drain. Well, throwing it to their electric co. needlessly.
Not so lucky in Alberta, we paid 151.40 in fees and taxes during a month where the usage and generation credit were the same 689 KWh.
@@airheart1 kpkp 👍
Chitungwixa Zimbabwe We don't give the grid anything nor do we take anything from them.
@@RandyTWester fucking ridiculous here in Alberta lol 🙃
Never underestimate the evil of utility companies. I'm interested in seeing if they are able to start charging you for the number of kw on your roof. It's so important that we fight for the right to produce our own power.
Its already happening. They're trying to neuter net-metering because they're not making enough money.
They're trying to do something like this in Socal by charging solar panels homes a fee to stay connected to the grid.
Trust they are working hard. They have tried twice now to pay net metering customers at the wholesale rate and not the retail rate. Here in Florida they first tried a constitutional amendment, this time FPL just tried to buy half the legislature
If you haven't followed what FPL/NextEra are going in Florida start looking. Prevailing reporters, secretly funding campaigns the list goes on.
LOL, yeah these high rates have nothing to do with the Dims. in Sacramento endless hunger for regulating and taxing things.
One aspect many people don’t seem to quantify is a self-sustaining and reliable power supply when the grid goes down for any reason. I find this very important and worth the cost of the Powerwalls.
It costs more to be able to off grid. You need special controls and smart panel. I think it’s like $10k extra.
Got my powerwalls in 2018 and agree it is a preppers dream system. Feels pretty good not caring what the energy companies rates or gas prices do.
Ben - I have Tesla Solar (10 KW - 24 panels) and 1 Powerwall2. I am north of SF in Sonoma County with solar point due south. I have had mine installed for over two years with one EV (I-Pace) (7,500 miles /year) and my critial home circuits are on a subpanel. I have been able to run successfully over a 2 1/2 day "fire outage" by PG&E. (Normal yearly consumption is 13,500 which is close to yours (I have a bigger home). My power bill has been $120 each of the last two years (PG&E required charge to do Net Metering). I am writing to recommend you push the 1 - Powerwall2 solution more. It does the job fine for me...at least with panels facing directly south. It gives me outage protection and artbitrage that keeps my costs to near zero.
I second this, especially if EV's are equipped/enabling Vehicle-To_Load charging to assist with backup power more over time.
There's a few details left out:
1. You're not allowed to get the Federal Energy Tax Credit unless your Powerwalls are paired with solar.
2. You're not allowed to charge your Powerwalls from the grid if you have the Powerwall+Solar configuration. The batteries are to be filled by your solar system only. Tesla sets up your app so you are prevented from charging the Powerwalls from the grid. It's part of their agreement with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of California. From solar charging only, that's why it's important to have the solar capacity. The only exception is during a storm watch event, where Tesla will enable the app temporarily to let the Powerwalls fill up from the grid.
3. If you have Powerwalls only, then yes you're allowed to charge from the grid, but disallowed from getting the federal tax credit (see #1)
4. You cannot discharge the Powerwalls to sell power back to the grid. Your solar panels can discharge to the grid if there's a surplus not needed by the Powerwalls but stored energy from the Powerwalls to the grid, no. Allowing this would be problematic to their business.
Good information. I expect that it won't be long before Tesla is calling the shots. Maybe not setting the Federal Tax Credits, but setting rates, charge/discharge sources. Tesla Powerwalls - connected through AutoBidder, and especially the Megapacks are going to begin replacing inefficient and costly peaker power plants. As with Tesla's EVs, the demand for Tesla's energy will be insatiable, green and less expensive. And may be even more profitable than their EV business. Tesla hopes to eventually (2030) produce 10% of annual vehicle production worldwide. If it can cut the cost of both production and infrastructure of Peak Power, as well as deliver an instantaneous response (It now takes at least an hour to fire up these turbine plants and energy production has to be over estimated) then no new peaker plants will be made, older ones shut down both replaced by Megapacks. (Hopefully you bought the stock for the EVs, Tesla energy will double whatever you hope to make.)
Just imagine after there are several communities in Texas (it's own power grid) with Megapacks and Autobidder - another huge snowstorm hits Texas. Some communities will go dark and their rates surge out of control (again), while Tesla Energy communities won't even blink or raise rates. What's going to happen after that?
4 is not always true. Here in MA we give Eversource permission to tap the powerwall into the grid at $225 per Kwh to support their peak load.
@@trophyfishn9757 I think you misunderstand the size of the financial incentive here.
While I still get to buy energy at my contracted rate Eversource are buying from me at their peak rates.
This effectively means they send me $1000 a year for having a powerwall.
I get energy independence and they pay me for it.
They cannot do it during storm watch.
They cannot do it more than 120 times a year 90 in the summer 30 in the winter. Summer AC use and winter electric baseboard heat basically drive the demand here.
@@HarmanatorNYC $225 per Kwh??? I'm guessing you missed a decimal in there!
@@ssoffshore5111 maybe. 120 full discharges pays $1200 so what does that work out to?
I have a farm but work 230km’s away, where I live most of the time. I’m able to do a day trip to my farm & recharge my EV from the Powerwall & solar panels - on a sunny day. It’s a great setup.
That is awesome!
Thanks, Ben. The '2 types' made me laugh out loud even though we all saw it coming... well played.
I think that from watching Fully Charged Show I can say that if "Your Utility Doesn't Want You to Know" this, you should switch your utility company. Peaker plant owners don't want you to know this, but utility company should be more than happy that you're reducing the load at the most demanding time on the grid and moving your use of electricity to when there's surplus. If enough energy consumers did this, it'd completely kill the need for peaker plants - the most polluting power plants.
you must live somewhere you can switch your utility provider? Here you generally only have 1 option
In the vast majority (at least) of Arizona, you only have one choice for your electric utility - that depends on where you live. Salt River Project just announced, a couple of months ago, that they will build a new billion dollar peaker (natural gas) peaker plant (to go online in 2024). It's cooked into the customers' rates, and there's no way around it, except moving, reducing usage, or supplying your own power (as Ben has done).
A hack generally means using a system in a manner unintended by the designer of that system. In this case everything is being used as it was intended to be used.
.....as it's POSSIBLE for it to be used, surely..?!
The way you use your solar and battery is up to you!
One of the energy providers over here in Texas, not mine, has a free nights & weekends plan. So a battery pack would be very tempting.
The thing is, your Tesla power wall is damaged by use. It wears out. If you do the maths, it's well over 10c of damage added for each kWh you cycle through it. So it's not actually cheap, and to maximise your setup you should try to maximally use the overnight electricity for running your AC system and charging your cars, rather than running them off the Powerwall during the day.
No? Bruh did you even watch the video?
This video was made 9 months ago. I smiled when we decided to use 3$ per gallon for gas and hooter days because of global warming. Today's temperature was 115° love this videos. Please keep them coming. Don't slow down our community Sir. Hope all is good.
there are 2 types of people:
the ones that can extrapolate from incomplete data
and
...
AND WHO??????? TELL ME BEN SULLINS
jk, thanks for the video
This is absolutely incredible. Every single American should watch this video. Amazing job of summarizing your strategy. We should all be living like this.
🙏
Except outside of CA, I know of nowhere else that has a program this generous. Not even close!
I see a lot of companies try to zero out a power bill. That is a dumb idea because you could end up producing more than you will ever see a return credit on. You should size it to offset the bill and buy it as you can afford it. Most people who go solar will not even begin to see a return in 25 years. Every dollar spent on equipment and interest if financed sets you back. I have heard companies say that you replace a power bill with a solar bill, that is still the same thing. A solar loan is paid until you pay it off. A power company can't charge for what you don't use. I want no bill. I ran into a company called Fluent Solar, they are a marketing only joke. They install nothing and really rip you off. Stay away from them. DIY is your best bet, or at least find a reputable company and never let them forget that you are the boss.
We live in Norway, up far North at 67 latitude, and last month we had a power bill of about 130 USD. This gives 4.33 USD per day. Now we are into a cold and snowy period and our prices are rising so we estimate around 6 USD per day if it gets extra cold. Not too bad, but we are using modern AC heating solutions and almost no old fashioned electric ovens. We are also sparse with not heating the bedrooms unless it gets too cold to bare, and then only in the evening. We are going to get an EV eventually and will of course be using more power in average because if that, but we have very short distances to work and the shops are also just 5 minutes away, so we drive less than 3000 km (1864miles) per year, if we are not driving on longer holiday trips
Great video. But also let’s be honest. To buy two electric vehicles is more then double if not triple a similar hybrid car. This is my biggest issue for the electric car from gas car switch. Thanks for all the information.
You have FAR better rate options than I do in the northeast! Off peak for me is a saving of about $0.02, with on peak being higher than the standard rate. Same with your NM rates, our is around $0.02 to $0.035 depending on the month/rate at the time.
BTW, once enough people adopt battery assisted solar systems, they will most certainly close the door on this "hack". Battery cost will have to come down significantly though before mass adoption happens.
You are not protected against a regulation change about net metering or TOU. In Belgium, we have net metering, but they just add a huge yearly tax to compensate for the usage of the network. (Network cost are here 50-75% off the bill, vs 25% the actual electrons). It’s basically saying that we buy from the grid full price but send back the overproduction at 25% of the price…
@@trophyfishn9757 true, that’s another kind of battery, but you need to use that much hot water daily, else when it’s almost at it boiling point, it cannot store more. My daily consumption of hot water is around 3 kWh.
In Belgium we can have also off peak and peak, but each counter is separate and net metering count is done on a yearly basis. Negative consumption on peak hour is lost/given for free, positive consumption on off-peak counter has to be paid
Don't agree with the title - if you avoid peak-time power usage, the utility minimises the generating capacity it needs so saves a lot of capital. Rather than the utility buying Megapacks, it gets the same benefit by encouraging consumers to have Powerwalls.
You have MUCH more generous net metering and time of use plan options than me. (Though our rates are lower.) I get a flat rate net metering credit regardless of the time it's fed back to the grid and that amount is a little less than my standard per-kilowatt usage cost. Meanwhile, our time-of-use plans are about 15 percent cheaper during off-peak and about double during peak, so they really only make sense if you hardly use any electricity during peak hours.
I still love my solar power and it's able to offset 95-100% of my usage ten months of the year and about 75% in the other two. But the idea of getting net metering credits for the full amount of power sent back to the grid at peak rate times had me feeling pretty jealous.
Similar to what I see in CT.
We were able to get Tesla batteries working with a solar company that wasn’t Tesla. They were still able to secure the batteries. We went with Baker Home Energy.
I'm assuming this was pre 2021?
@@ssoffshore5111 Nope, everything was installed in late October 2021.
@@Desigc Gotcha, I didn't realize they were selling them to partners or other installers.
I live in TX and I had money printing machine on my roof instead of electricity bill 2019-2020 because of the kind of energy plans that were available back then. After paying me $800 on top of never having anything due over 2 years (most of it during 2020 since my electric car was driven much less), my energy plan provider did not want to renew and would not of offer any of their current solar plan to me either. So shopping again for retail energy provider, I saw they have all become smarter and there are no more plans that will allow me to make money, but there are still plans that allow me to have $0 electric bills. Their earnings in that scenario is limited to my over production that they get to sell for their profits.
The decision to install solar is definitely both an economic as well as an ecological investment. It is also risk management in State like TX which has an unreliable grid especially during extreme weather events.
@@trophyfishn9757 The TX grid is not connected to national grid. Any reference to federal involvement on whether TX grid works or doesn't is missing key information.
Colorado based. Live in a town that has it's own electric company. We already have pretty low costs for electricity. When I do the math (the cost of the solar system), what I would normally pay, per month, I would make about twice as much per month from investing the money in an ETF like JEPI, than the cost of electricity. So: $125 a mo electric bill vs. $250 a month from the investment, I can't make the numbers work. Also, our community based electric company will take extra power back into their grid, but, they only do it at 'wholesale' pricing, which is a lot lower than what the actual price to city residents pay.
However, the idea of running, effectively, 'off grid' when I want to, is super attractive and the real draw for me. So, I still may pull the trigger on doing this, but not for financial reasons so much as feeling more personally comfortable with where my resources are coming from.
Yes!!! This is the video I’ve been waiting for. Someday load-shifting will be intuitive to people, crazy to me how abstract it seems now.
The analogy I like to use is to compare time-of-use to the stock market. Imagine if every day Apple stock is $100/share before 11AM, and $200/share after 11AM, what would you do? Obviously you’d buy Apple stock before 11AM and sell it after 11AM, duh right?!?!
However, when you apply the same rationale to electricity people lose interest. I can’t figure out why.
Thanks for putting this together, I’ll reference this video and share it when I try to explain why people should get solar + batteries!
It would be interesting to see a video based on Texas costs. I don't have any solar panels nor powerwalls. Texas electricity is much cheaper than in California, so I have done my analysis and it is not worth yet, strictly in terms of cost. Especially if you join a "free nights" plan and have nobody at home during the day. I have a Model 3 so I charge overnight basically for free.
It'll be worth it when we have another power outage.
After China kicked them out a bunch of crypto miners have been setting up shop in state. So now there will be even more demand on the grid.
A thing to consider is return on investment (ROI). If you invested $27,000 in a mutual fun and got around 20% ROI, you would be overjoyed, but note that 3.8-year payback. That means the ROI for the system is a little more than 25%. Where in the world can you get an ROI of 25%/year for as long as you own the array?
Big brain moves for sure. Nicely said
Thanks for the interesting video. Supposing solar to provide all electrical needs of the house, 2 PowerWalls, and an electric vehicle …
1) Our power company will not pay back at rates equal to what they charge. They pay only a tiny fraction for what users send back to the grid.
2) Living in a wildlife interface area with high fire danger and power shut offs, we would need to keep a high discharge limit on the PowerWalls to ensure off grid power in emergency situations.
3) Also, assuming an electric vehicle battery is 75 kWh storage and two PowerWalls are only 27 kWh, how is it possible to charge an electric car from that setup. The PowerWalls would be only a snack for the electric vehicle.
For item 3: Most people don’t drive 200 to 300 miles a day. Assume a high average of 15K miles/car/year (your mileage will vary). So 15,000 / 365 = 41 miles/day average. Then 41/3 (miles/kWh) is only ~=14 kWh used per day.
wait untill tesla switch on the V2G capabilities, it will blow away large number of players in the market :)
@@NoInfoFound the problem is all these "average" calculations are just assumptions and the real life demand profile looks different enough to make it nearly senseless...
@@1AisntAbsolute will never happen.
FYI, for example, you CANNOT go off grid is San Diego county unless it is an extreme burden to run a power line to your home. That is a law. When I moved into my new model home, that had solar, and I went to add the power walls to go completely off grid, I found out from the electricians that is was against the law and that they could not separate me from the grid.
More like $4.25 per gallon in NYC.
Now there will be a new power power plant manufacturing plant making all the different size and horsepower motors to retrofit existing equipment buildings and have need. To go with the Battery wall.
Been thinking of switching of TOU program here in FL for our Tesla solar powered with 2 powerwalls home. In winter we use no grid power but in the 6 months of summer we average about $100/mn. Unfortunately, FPL gives a kW per kW net metering exchange, not $ based so the hack won't work to play the create low-sell high plan.
Didn't CA update their NetMetering policy to only pay Wholesale prices for electricity sent back to the grid?
prices changed dramatically. but when it comes to Tesla also, - nobody taking in consideration car cost (civic 25k vs tesla 3 60k). And higher insurance + long delays + possible multiple failures and fixes + I am not even talking about range anxiety and battery degradation (I have T3, but so far math is not on our side yet).
We’re not surprised at the electricity rates doubling in 20 years because we know that due to the average inflation prices double roughly every 24 years. Based on that metric we’re getting a deal.
Great analysis. Net metering is key here.
Our utilities (Edison South Bay) only pays $0.03/kWH. With TOU rate $0.10 - $0.48
With our Solar+PW system, 'Self-Powered' settings saves us more$
On of your best videos. Maybe cause I agree with most all of what was said. Primarily due to a lack of trust in regulators and utility companies. But suspect that TOU will change over time, reducing today’s benefits.
I have 2 EV’s, 9.6 kW solar & 2 Power Walls & a PG&E customer
Hi, how does it work out having 2 ev's? Are you able to charge both of them from solar alone? what's your electric bill?
@@coalheatman I am able to mostly charge both using a combination of solar and battery (which is stored solar). I say mostly, since the wife and I have a 2nd residence, which has non solar charging, and use it for ~20% of our charging. Monthly bill is ~$10-12, which is a net energy tariff.
Your low on the average KWH per year for homes. According to the US EIA(Energy Information Administration:
"In 2020, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,715 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of about 893 kWh per month. Louisiana had the highest annual electricity consumption at 14,407 kWh per residential customer, and Hawaii had the lowest at 6,446 kWh per residential customer."
Would love to hear Ben’s thoughts on the new IQ8 inverters.
In SCE territory, if you compares with TOU Prime they offer which you need to have an EV, their rate is $.0.23 in average 24-hour period. That means $28,000 investment will take at least 10.5 years to recoup in the best case scenario. Yes, I decided to skip solar and battery.
in UK Gas unit per KW is 3 times less expensive than electric KW units
that is Ben that i like - shitload of data!
great vid!
Jesus christ. My winter rates are $0.08 /kw, and I still put 62 panels on my house.
everyone in CA should have panels at those rates.
Tesla is starting my roof installation tomorrow. I can't wait for it to be done.
In the video Ben states the average usage in the US is 6,000 kWh per year. I checked my bill just now and I used 3,115 kWh in one month. That would be 37,380 kWh in one year. Am I reading something incorrectly? Based upon that I would need a 25 kW system based upon what Ben states in the video.
Whenever you own something (like solar panels and the energy storage system) you will need to take care of both 1) maintenance and 2) repair in all sorts of events, for which you likely have an insurance. You should explicitly add maintenance costs and insurance costs over 10 years to the bill as well when doing your extrapolation.
Ive had a 10.4 KW system with 2 inverters for 40 panels on my roof for 5 years. ZERO dollars in maintenance costs.
@@reid1boys Would not have been zero if you bought the insurance suggested by koeniglicher above!
Great overview of the problem, opportunity and solution. I find myself in the same boat, with our power company forcing us into time of use because we are a net metering customer. Doing the math on the battery investment, and the opportunity cost of not investing that money in other places.
The prices in the US are much cheaper than in Belgium. Here we're paying almost 2500 dollar for the same amount of usage as you've mentioned in your video.
Just FYI, you can still get a Tesla Powerwall (Powerwall2) from a distributer with or without solar, just not direct from Tesla.
great to know!
Ouch! Even your "Super off peak" prices are insane! I pay 9¢ per kWh in the summer and 8¢ winter, and I thought that was too much.
13 dollarcent per kw/h... Wow this is amazing. The Netherlands (EU) prices used to be 0.25 euro en is now around 0.35 euro per kw/h.. wish I could buy a Tesla powerwall here...
My only issue is we get some severe hail storms in Colorado. Every summer we get hail but sometimes, we’ll get a severe storm where thousands of vehicles and roofs are totaled and I have a nagging suspicion that warranty wouldn’t cover severe hail storms. Though, I don’t know for absolute certain that would be the case.
It's not completely true but you might want to check it out. The net metering they pay us is not as much as what we pay for electricity. From my understanding they pay us wholesale price which is about 9 cents per kilowatt not the 30 or 53 cents. The use of your power wall during peak times is a great idea.
yep, it's in the NEM law for the state
In Norway we pay ~$400 per month for a bit over 1k of kWh.. sometimes up to $1.3 per kwh..
Did you say 90% savings over 10 years? And if the panels last 2x or 3x that? Are these LFP packs that like being charged to 100% Then how many full charge/discharge cycles can they endure & over how many years? I'll def have to replay. Thanks for doing the hard stuff!!!
As always, I've learned from this excellent video. A point you made answered a crucial question for me, when you stated… "Every watt that we send back to the grid during these peek hours we get credit for at that peak rate … [repeating] … When I send energy back to the grid the utility company gives me credit for that and it’s at the same rate as if I had bought it at that period of time“. Tesla has just completed an installation of a 15 kW solar glass roof with three powerwalls. The SDG&E Time Of Use plan I'll likely adopt (called EV-TOU-5) is almost identical to the one you describe. It costs $16/mo. as a so-called Basic Service fee. For the life of me I can’t find a statement on the SDG&E web side to confirm that I will be given credit for energy I send them at the rate I would pay for it at the time it is sent. Is SDG&E compelled to do so in California? If so please reply with any specific confirmatory reference of which you might be aware. TIA, and keep up the good work. Randy Hawkins
Check this news.energysage.com/net-metering-2-0-in-california-everything-you-need-to-know/
@@trophyfishn9757 Be happy with 50%, we get about 10%! Many states get nothing.
Ben, I started following you years ago, but made few comments. I really enjoyed this video. Just yesterday, we ordered our first preowned Tesla Model 3. We are also in the process of having a Tesla Solar Roof installed. We need a new roof and decided to go with the Tesla solar roof for durability and electricity generation. I like the idea of not having an electric bill, but even more important for us are the reasons you mentioned for not relying on fuel or electricity. This is one way we plan to keep our family protected in these uncertain times. Keep up the great work. Free the Data and Your Mind Will Follow!
It seems that there are two main opportunities in effect with this hack: 1) selling solar power into the grid at peak times/price, and 2) selling battery-stored super-off peak rate power into the grid at peak price. (As well as avoiding getting power from the grid during peak times, of course.) From an economic perspective, not emergency preparedness*, does it even make sense to include solar in this hack; by that I mean, would it be cheaper to just buy more battery and buy more power at the super-off peak power and sell it at the peak rate, or is the amortized cost of solar power sent directly into the grid even cheaper than super-off-peak power combined with the associated amortized battery storage cost?
(*Additional batteries would also help with emergency preparedness to some extent, but only solar can keep you going at some level when the grid has a very sustained outage. And even at that, in December in New York, solar system productivity may drop as much as 90% for the month, providing little emergency buffer...)
Here in Northern California buying off-peak power, storing it in a battery, and selling it back to the utility at peak rates is explicitly prohibited. You can store locally generated solar power, if it is produced when rates are low, and use it to replace or offset peak power, and or send it to the grid at a high price. And you can use grid power to charge a battery using cheap power, and then use the stored power later on your own premises, but you can't send it back to the grid after you get it from the grid.
Fantastic data! Thanks for the info!
In Australia we pay 26c (au) per kw,,,we double USA and its going up and up
Great show!! Loved it!!! Keep'em coming!!!
My Tiered-level pricing here in Ontario, Canada has turned out to be better than time-of-use. I pay just under 22 cents per kilowatt hour. My monthly cost of CDN $75 is helped by the fact that I turn on my AC for only five or so days. For transportation, I use public transit (about $30/month), and an electric Vespa-like scooter. . . Which doesn’t seem to have impacted my electrical costs. A powerwall/solar roof would NOT benefit ME.
By the way, we get almost 60% our energy from Nuclear Power. Only 6% comes from fossil fuels (Natural Gas).
The only problem is, you're not producing much at all into the evening, and yet this is also the highest consumption time sapping your batteries. So, if you enter an extended power outage at, say, 7pm, you're off to a bad start and might not make it all the way until morning, especially running the central AC.
with 27kWh we'd def make it to the morning. Our house uses about 1kW per hour, so not from sun down to sun up maybe 14kWh
Here in the Phoenix area the regularitory swamp use to be pretty stinky. I was refused a permit twice before going "illegal". 21.2 kW panels, 21.6 kW charge controller. 100 kWh used EV packs, 20 kW inverter. We aren't allowed net metering and you wern't allowed TOU if you had solar. I started building my power plant in 2017. We charge two Teslas. Some limited Powerwall installs are now being permitted in high property tax areas such as Gilbert, AZ. This also improves the banking systems balance sheet because the "reposesible" home has a higher evaluation from the get-go. I haven't heard yet whether the City of Gilbert has bumped the tax base evaluatuion yet for solar users. If they haven't yet...it's just a mater of time.
This sounds great. Here in the UK, we are being robbed by utility companies we get £67 From the government to try to ease the pain. and that's ending soon.
Maybe I missed where you accounted for the money lost opportunity cost? i.e., $28,000 invested in the S&P 500 for 10 years, assuming it continues to return 8%, would yield about $22,000 in gains in a decade. If you borrowed the $28,000 you incurred interest costs.
Getting a few Powerwalls makes no sense at all for us. But a Megapack would get the job done. Only question is who's business to pay for it.
If your apart a Electric Co-op you could talk them into letting you add to a community micro grid with panels on all the houses connected to MegaPack.
The same 28k invested in a good yielding mutual fund or index fund of some kind would give me an CAGR of 10%.
Meaning, it would atleast be 2.5 times, meaning at least 60k in 10 years.
Money saved is 9k vs Money earned is 40k.
No, it's not great financial sense, but good karma, which everyone wants to do.
Have you ever thought about how this analyse can be wrong in 10 years time or 20 years time? I mean, the more people adopt solar and "power walls", the prices will change, and it might get actually cheaper to buy electricity from the grid, which will make harder and harder to make this kind of setup, and earlier adopters will pay more for there electricity over time, but with the advantage of collecting more saving.
The only hope I have is that these setups will became cheaper to purchase but the industry always try to make the most out it, which might mean the average cost of electricity might not change if we include the costs of installing it and spread it across several years, if we compare what an average family pays now without solar and batteries and a future scenario where solar and batteries are the common world, they probably will pay more or less the same amount monthly.
I hope I made myself clear enough to explain where I wish to get.
Unfortunately, i live in Portugal, and everything is much expensive than US, electricity, solar, batteries, and the cost of installing a setup like this, it is still not worth it. Obviously solar is the way to go, but the warranty being the same but the cost being much higher, means the calculation will be much different too, which will not be worth do it.
It's just sad. Portugal is not ahead in this matter for sure.
Something to think about.
Awesome breakdown of how to manage electricity costs.
How about running houses and buildings with different size power plants elictruc powerplants like scaled down car motors essentially producing mini powerplants out if each garage or basement or rooftop. Where all AC units all motors are actually producing cogeneration risidual energy maximising efficiency. By using micro Hydrogen hybrid units like on a lawnmower. Everything plugging or emminating back into the grid. Solar hybrid diessl Electric nuclear plasma.
Here in Western Australia the economics dont work. Feed in tariff for solar is on 3c/kWh or 10c during peak times. Peak usage price is 54c/kWh.
Unsure if I am the only one how thinks that net metering is propably the most unsocial plan a utility company could offer to their customers? I mean who is paying for distribution, infrastructure, administration? It is factored in your electricity cost which means in net metering you will just let pay the little guy who can't affored the investment. Would be lucky to hear if I miss something here?
In Germany you will get for your solar energy nearly the prices a utility company would get when putting Energy into the grid currently something like 6ct (utility company is more like 2-3ct of earnings) . While paying 32ct per kwh factoring every expense in additional to generation.
Interesting, first time I've heard of those
I just got a quote of 55k without batteries to install solar -batteries would cost an additional 20k. Yikes.
Glad to see you
Since most of the cost he is basing this on is for heating and cooling. Spending this money in better insulation and reducing the power needs would be a better use of the money.
This is all great, but it all comes back to being able to purchase the roof/panels/power walls. The power walls are around $7,000 a pop, and I really have no idea how much panels of the solar tiles would cost for our small rancher. My wife and I are Future Cybertruck Owners, and we were even able to purchase a few shares of Tesla stock. Can’t really do much when both of us are on Social Security Disability so, something like this is what we call a lottery purchase.
Yes, my electric bill sky rocketed & I charge off peak!
great, useable information, thanks for doing all the work :)
Also, grid-tied solar systems are generally configured to shut down if the grid goes down. Can the Tesla system be operated with the grid down? can it be isolated from the grid. Other grid-tied systems cannot.
It wouldn’t be a very good backup system if it didn’t!
Remember to factor in a battery change in the car.
I love freeing the data!
power to the people
You only have about 7-8 years left of that power wall, if no cells fail. If they fail, good luck. Lots of older Model S’s are getting cell issues just outside of warranty. Is anyone shocked?
Shout out to San Diego!
I can't believe how expensive electricity is in your area. In Brisbane Queensland Australia i am paying 18 cents per kw. 18 Australian cents per kw. That's like 1 US cent or something 😂😂😂
No off-peak for me, same rate 24x7x365
YUP LADWP In Los Angeles
Its all good and all, but you also have to account for the cost of your cars. They are not free
Energy sage has me at $5100 savings over 20 years, with a 13.5 year payback, if I pay up front for the system. Any financing and it would cost me more than would save.
I still want to do it at some point, but with my low energy use home, and cheap Texas electricity, I don't expect much of a ROI.
In Texas, there is actually a small penalty charged for not using more than 1000 kwh in a month, which I get charged all 12 months of the year.
Yeah the financial incentive isn't as strong there. Would be better doing it for the next time the power goes out
@@BenSullinsOfficial I have a small generator that can run my gas furnace and some lights, but have never had to run it, other than testing it.
I never lost power during The Great Texas Freeze, and my HVAC/R service truck actually has snow rated all weather tires.
I was the only one in the company that could run service calls, so I was not at home for most of it anyway.🤣
I definitely am looking at solar + battery storage, just kind of waiting for the batteries to come down some more.
Maybe when Tesla moves away from car batter cells in their power wall.
Thank You for all of your videos that you did. I am enjoying all of them.
Nice video and agree there are non financial benefits to your set up. Your math on payback is flawed as you need to incorporate time value of money. So say your investment upfront is 20K. Well if you can get 7% in the market over ten years that 20K turns into 40K. So your payback period is way longer than the ten years or so you quote.
I thought you can’t sell your extra energy ? Or they pay you very little ?
Awesome breakdown and video
Not really saving $9k, money is worth more now than it is later. So probably looking at a few grand, but you gain the realiability.
Agreed, when you look at the potential opportunity cost of that initial investment, the numbers certainly aren't so attractive. Never mind the fact most of the population doesn't have access to such a generous plan (which will disappear in time also.)
Man I wish Energy Sage worked in Canada.
at my location it would cost 30k with all the incentives. thats way out of my budget
good informative video. Cheers
I wonder what part of Southern California you live? I live in south Orange County, using Edison co. Right now I have 28 panels on the roof(facing south west side) along with one LG battery 🪫 that’s isn’t working (malfunction). In time they will replace the LG battery for me, so far Sunrun sent me $75 checks monthly till problem resolved.
I have one Tesla model X and ordered a model 3P waiting for delivery. Sunrun would not sell me any more panels due to Edison. Unless I get the Tesla powerwalls (2 battery), in this case I want to add 8 more solar panels with the powerwalls. Let me know your thoughts. My Edison energy plan is still under a grandfather plan which It is .16 cents
Off peak rate: .40 cents
Peak rate: .72 cents