The TRUTH About Tesla Powerwalls (2yr Review)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2021
- Go to buyraycon.com/bensullins 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.
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.
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.
Tesla owner with a 14kw solar array on my roof. Here in NY the utility sells you the power at the retail rate and buys it from you at the wholesale rate. So you cannot make money or credits selling power back to them. Because of this most solar systems are sized exactly for your usage. I oversized my array so I could charge a car, which I didn't even own at the time. Here you also have to pay the tariff every month up front. This is your taxes, 911 fee, delivery charges etc. So with no usage your bill is $30 a month. Fortunately they still let us use oil and propane here so we don't have the burden of an entirely electric home.
@@trophyfishn9757 I am in coal country so I have a coal stove for supplemental and back up heat. Its cheap silent and cranks out the heat, when I need it. I also keep some portable kerosene heaters around for backup. One of the first and best things I did with this house is buy a propane tankless style hot water heater, best thing I ever did. Took out the 30 gallon contractor grade tank style, now I do not have to run that with my solar or a generator and it provides endless hot water.
I am considering a drain back style hot water solar array, but I may save that for my next house. Smart meters are illegal in New York for the time being. It took some doing just to get a reversible meter. I only get any kind of bill for usage in Jan and Feb, because my wife was running an electric space heater in the foyer, it's our cold spot in the house. If I start seeing usage go up I will buy one of those solar car chargers and put an array on a carport to charge the Tesla. The panels now cost less than half of what I paid for my 14kw array.
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
Great video. This info is super helpful. I’m hoping to have a similar setup in my next home
Thanks, Ben. The '2 types' made me laugh out loud even though we all saw it coming... well played.
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?
Tks Ben, shared with my LinkedIn group. Excellent video. 👍
Great show!! Loved it!!! Keep'em coming!!!
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!
Fantastic data! Thanks for the info!
Exceptional explanation for the benefits of a T P W. Outstanding Ben!
Well done, Ben! I extrapolated how much I would pay my utility over the next 20 years, assuming rates don't change, vs the cost of 2 Powerwalls & 10 kW solar. The numbers were nearly equal. That made my purchase much easier to justify.
"assuming rates don't change" = lalaland ?
@@bobsaturday4273 LOL
Big brain moves for sure. Nicely said
Great analysis. Net metering is key here.
Our utilities (Edison South Bay) only pays $0.03/kWH. With TOU rate $0.10 - $0.48
With our Solar+PW system, 'Self-Powered' settings saves us more$
great, useable information, thanks for doing all the work :)
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.
Hey Ben, When calculating the electricity price are you just going off of supply price or supply + delivery?
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!
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.
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).
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
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
Caveat for anyone doing payback calculations: Don't assume that peak rate periods will stay the same. Where I live in Northern California, peak rates, when I first installed my solar panels included all the sunniest hours of the day, which made my solar production very valuable. 4 years in, the utility pulled the plug on that plan (pun intended), and now the lowest off-peak rate goes from midnight until 3 PM. At the stroke of a pen, the value of the power my panels produce was reduced to 1/3rd of the amount I was expecting to make for the life of the system. That's when I invested in a battery, and now I store my midday solar production, and use it in the afternoon and evening (just as you describe in this video) to avoid buying any peak rate power.
Great video and LOVED the joke at 6:20 awesome
Ben, thank you for your excellent over view of how the PowerWall works and its benefits. Many people still think photovoltaics solar is just a novelty in its infancy and know even less about the PowerWall. Mention PowerWall and most respond with just a glassy eyed look. The industry MUST do better to get the word out that these are practical solutions to an ever increasing problem.
Bullshit, the only Problem till today is the price of batteries and the whole system, if it was actually affordable most people would have had it already.
Awesome breakdown and video
Awesome video ben
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.
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.
Glad to see you
Great video 👍
Hey @Ben Sullins, I just saw you rowing during the raycon ad.... as efficiently as you use electricity, as inefficient is your rowing style ;-) I´m not sure if you´re up for beating records, but there is some room for quick improvements witha short coaching on your technique. Greetings from the DSHS Cologne, Germany.
Great video. I have SunPower Solar acquired 2014 and then 2 Powerwalls November 2020. I've had a full year in Self Power mode with me adjusting the Reserve power on Cloudy or Rain Days in Southern Calif
January is when my net metering starts all over again. I want to try out the Time Of Use setting for 1 year. We are with SCE and their TOU is 4pm-9pm for the entire week. Setting the Powerwalls to TOU ..does this mean I don't have to worry about Peak 4pm-9pm? It will automatically be on Battery power?
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.
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.
Spot on. Many thanks.
Awesome breakdown of how to manage electricity costs.
Would love to hear Ben’s thoughts on the new IQ8 inverters.
G'Day Ben. I'm in Australia and have 6.4kW of solar, a single Powerwall2, and TOU pricing (but much higher off peak rates of around 25c/kWh. We don't have net metering anywhere in Australia AFAIK so we have to live with the extremely poor FiT (Feed in Tariff) of just 5c/kWh making it not very rewarding to export power to the grid. I however am also in a VPP (that pays me $15 per month) and have a 20c/kWh FiT, which helps a bit. The powerwall has been great, having saved us from 26 separate power outages in the last 11 months, the biggest being 8 hours long. We didn't even notice there was a problem ! Anyone who 'can' have solar should, and over 3 million Aussie homes now have it. Just imagine the Gigawatts being generated... No wonder the coal fired power stations are shutting down.
Thanks for sharing!
How big is your Solar pannel, is it 4KW or 8 KW with 2 powerwall?
This video was made 9 months ago. I smiled when we decided to use 3$ 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.
Does that $18k price include installation, or is it just the hardware?
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!
Nice work! Here in WA State we don't have Time of Use but that just means we can accomplish something similar without the need for the time-shifting magic of the Powerwall. I still have to pay the basic hookup fee to be connected to the grid but that comes out to less than $120/year for all my home and vehicle energy needs - for those of you wondering, yes, I went big on the PV array but the payoff period was about 3 years.
The time-shifting magic of Tesla Powerwalls, great title!
Yep. No "time of use" here in WA and at 0.0725 per kWh it would take forever to pay back for a nice solar/battery system.
@@Pottery4Life True, if you're just offsetting electricity use, solar is currently a longer payback in WA. However, back when I put my system in, up to 50% of the cost was covered by the state incentive and an additional 30% was covered by the Fed tax credit. Couple that with offsetting my old NG and gasoline costs and I kind of hit the perfect storm. Lastly, the incentive/credit applied to the total install cost so I purposefully designed the ground mount part of my PV array as a two-car carport, further offsetting the cost of a structure I would have built anyway.
Living on the sunny side of the state certainly helps too.
I love the optionality of having a home battery. I am trying to spec a solar + battery system for my house. We have cheaper electricity ($0.13/kWh) and maximum time of use charges of about $20/month (although I could see that increasing…). Is a two Powerwall system still a good idea?
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!
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?
One factor that makes the future extrapolation of costs a bit uncertain to me is the reliance on the delta of rate of peak and off-peak hours being this large. As we get into the the future with higher and higher electricity demand, there's a high likelihood that the supply of electricity will also get more expensive. This doesn't entirely nullify the argument made ofcourse, especially with the concept of solar being 'free' electricty, but the calculation becomes a lot more nuanced.
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.
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!!!
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.
excellent how to video. thx!
My electricity has also doubled - an EV plus switched from oil heating to a heat pump. Ireland doesn't do net metering - a feed in tariff will happen at some point but it will only be a few cents per kWh. Still, just offsetting my electricity usage is a big win. Widespread wind/solar/storage deployment would reduce energy prices but since it's clear we're not going to do that as quickly as we should, I paid €12k to offset 5.5kWh of my usage a year.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Interesting, first time I've heard of those
that is Ben that i like - shitload of data!
great vid!
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.
As long as you are connected to the grid, you cannot be independent from the tariff structure and conditions. If they lower the factor between super-off peak and peak to factor 1.5 or 2 instead of 6, then a main source of your income (storing energy at night, reselling it at peak hours) will vanish. This will affect your bill. The same holds true, when they cancel the net metering and drastically reduce the prices for energy fed into the grid as this will lower your energy income as well.
Fantastic video
my only comment on your setup is that you should have at least double the amount of solar you have. Also(ok not my only comment), I watched a video where you were doing water from air. My self I use water from from a dehumidifier(outside) and then distill it, of course this I only use for drinking and cooking. anyhow, another great video...
Here in The Netherlands, there are many many solar panels already installed. So many in fact, that the grid can't support any new ones. It's literally at its maximum capacity for most of the country.
Then they need more batteries, both in homes and on the grid. When solar customers "self-consume" it doesn't affect the grid at all.
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.
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.
All rates and net metering plans in California are set by California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). All the investor owned utilities in California have submitted proposals to alter TOU and net metering, primarily designed to lower the credits. Two prolonged: lower the reimbursement rate, and have monthly instead of annual true up. Remember that solar has a dramatic seasonal variation, ie what you produce at midsummer is much more than production at mid winter. Question for Ben, does your home use natural gas? Does that substantially alter your analysis ?
Is the Powerwall an AC-coupled or a DC-coupled battery? We charge our EV from rooftop solar using a Zappi charger. Initially the EV was drawing energy from our DC-coupled (non-Tesla) battery - until we found a work-around to prevent the battery being drained.
I'm surprised how expensive rooftop solar is in America. In sunny Australia our 6.6 kW system cost AU $6,000. Most Aussies instal a minimum of 6.6 kW, with many people installing considerably larger systems.
I believe it's AC coupled. Your cost are so low because your government subsidies it. My guess is you're collectively paying the difference in taxes.
@@ssoffshore5111 our fed govt rebate on solar panels (but not on inverters/installation) is relatively modest and has been decreasing every year for a number of years, before being removed completely. This modest rebate doesn't explain why Americans pay about 300% more for rooftop solar than Australians do.
Do you still recommend buying as much solar as possible if you live in a state that does not have net energy metering?
My friends who have solar in Arizona get killed on the credits. Pretty much the over energy they produce in the day does not cover the night.
I guess adding a power wall would fix that. Any suggestions for Arizona?
If you do battery storage yeah but otherwise probably hard to justify
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.
Great video. Loved the jump cut joke. Had a question that maybe you or the community could help me with. Was considering Tesla Solar with battery and was wondering if it would make more sense to get the 8.50kw in panels and 1 powerwall or 4.25kw in panels and 2 powerwalls. Roughly same cost. I live in Los Angeles and use roughly 11,000kwh a year. Thanks
We also have 2 electric vehicles
I always recommned getting more solar than you think you need so that's the way I would go. The one hiccup here tho is that with only 1 powerwall you might not be able to run your whole house on it like I do. Their new inverter is more powerful but you still probably want more than 13.5kWh of backup.
and remember that solar panels loose 1-4% over first two years and 0,3-1% / year afterwards. So think about ~30-40 years to the future
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.
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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.
Hi...just wondering...do you have enough battery capacity to run your air conditioning without having to use the utility company power?
yep
Good cost analysis, with one big exception. You, along with almost everyone else who does this kind of costing exercise do not factor in the "opportunity cost" of the up front expense. My rooftop solar system cost about $18,000. I could have invested that $18,000 instead of buying a solar system, and made (very roughly again) $18,000 over 10 years with only moderately good investing performance. That $18,000 gain I missed out on by building a solar system instead is a real cost, and needs to be added to the calculations. When I do that, my payback period becomes almost infinite. Bummer. But grid power rates may go up during the life of my system, and I am insulated from that. And I did add a battery, and the ability to time shift my usage to the cheapest off peak helps some more. And there is the very valuable, but hard to quantify ability to have power when the grid is down. That pushed me past the pure economic calculations, and decided to go for it.
power to the people
great video
Would be interested to see a more recent Net Metering map than from 2017. DTE in Michigan managed to kill off Net Metering in 2019.
Full Net Metering isn't practical for the utility, in Alberta you get back the electricity portion, they keep the rest.
CT still has it, but it's revamped for 2022 and not in favor of the consumer!
@@ssoffshore5111 A subsidy is usually unsubstainable, and comes to an end. The system in Alberta is that we pay 20 cents per kwh, and we get paid 7.5 cents for feed-in. So a net zero month costs us about $150, plus tgs cost of solar.
Thank You for all of your videos that you did. I am enjoying all of them.
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 Norway we pay ~$400 per month for a bit over 1k of kWh.. sometimes up to $1.3 per kwh..
Utility in OR does offer time of use pricing… but you only save $.025 per kwh for off peak vs the fixed/standard price plan. Seems not worth it really.
Do you still have gas to your house?
Did you shut off gas?
Do you use an electric water tank?
Thank you
Going to be all electric soon!
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.
Could you use your hack of going off grid with a 14000 wt generator that costs around $1500 and with inverter for total of $2000. Then just use this during peak hours and be protected from power company outages and reduce your electrical bill? This could save the $26000 dollars of start up costs and maintenance of expensive panels and power wall and have added befits of being portable for camping or work etc. plus reduce electricity bill.
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.
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!
Hi, do you have two wind turbines to generate electricity? From your roof picture, there seems to be two. Can I know how much energy the wind turbines generate if you have?
I mean the screenshot at 11:22
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?
Ben , long time fan! I have solar already but need some powerwalls now. Tesla won’t sell them to me because I already have solar. Help… what are my options ? Thank you sir 🙏
Check my "Tesla Stops Selling Powerwalls" video
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.
Shout out to San Diego!
in UK Gas unit per KW is 3 times less expensive than electric KW units