We are getting ready to add 2 PW3s to our 12.5 Enphase PV system. Given the 30% Tax Credit and the $300 per kWh CASH REBATE (27 kWh X $300 = $9100) from my utility, I'll be OTD for about $17K. That's about $5K less than a 24kWh GENERAC generator I was initially looking at. I've crunched my numbers every way I can and the 2 PW3s and my PV system can power our small new high-efficiency villa indefinitely, with little compromise. We'll be an "ISLAND OF PEACE and SAFETY" in a sea of chaos.
That's a killer incentive from your utility! Do you have to agree to VPPs or anything to receive that incentive? You're going to love the Powerwalls. They truly are the icing on the cake for home solar generation!!
I had a Raspberry Pi lying around. I put Home Assistant on it. For example, it shuts off car charging at 4 pm. If the cars start charging at 2 and need to charge for three hours, it runs an hour into peak rates at 11.5 kw. I also use it to limit solar exports; I went from 50% solar exports last year to about 20% this year. I wrote a number of automations in Home Assistant to do this. I was off NEM 2.0 for a number of years, long story. For someone on NEM 3.0 it may be handy. I'm still waiting for the charge on solar option on the Tesla apps. Till then I use the automations. My 2020 era 7.6 KW solar and 2 V2 Powerwalls cannot run my entire house. One of two AC units and the Tesla charger are not powerwall backed up. And I need to add a soft start the the PW backed up AC unit. You've got a sweet system.
That sounds pretty sweet! When you say you use it to limit solar exports, do you mean by initiating charging? Or do you have it automate any other processes? For us, in the summer, I'll specifically save our laundry for the middle of the day on my days off to better utilize our solar. My hope is that they introduce a feature to prioritize charging the Powerwalls to my set percentage before initiating Charge on Solar. I'm sure it's coming, but waiting stinks :) Thanks for the compliment, I definitely tried to get the most system I could get! I wanted the whole house backed up no matter what.
In order to limit exports automatically I wrote automations to change the charging amps (to limit powerwall draw down and those losses), set powerwall reserve levels during the day (to allow the Powerwalls to charge up before peak rates if the A/C came on or solar production was low, etc. ), and start and stop charging at specific states of charge, etc. while running the powerwall in "Self Powered Mode" to try and use solar first before PW charging. Manually, if it was going to be a sunny day, I'd draw the powerwall down by car charging to make room for the solar coming in. I could automate that process as well. And like you, manually delay appliances, but the car charging and A/C are the heavy hitters. Waiting for the app updates as well, but wanted to limit my exports while I was completely off NEM and getting zero credit for them. I believe "charge on solar" will only work when the Powerwalls are at about 100% and the system would start exporting. For my car I would pick something like below 50% "charge now" and between 50 and 80 charge on solar exports. For my wife's car, I'd pick 70 and 80 respectively, if I understand how it's supposed to work. Yes, I know this is all extremely twiddly and complicated, but I was throwing away about 5 MWH a year, half of my production, for a while there, due to that lack of NEM. Limiting exports now with NEM 2.0 saves the Non Bypassable Charges. I believe these costs are lower for me with SCE than you with PG&E.
@@TheMahkus BTW, if the grid was actually down or disconnected, that Powerwall Reset would result in power loss until it rebooted. That's why I need an A/C soft start, in case the A/C is running when the grid goes down.
@@stephengwinn6859Wow, you really got down into it and set it up nicely! I anticipate that once our Model 3 gets Charge on Solar we probably won't export too much to the grid anymore.
Odd that your Powerwall gateway reset like that and switched to fully supplying from the grid. When i ramp up my household load it is supplied first from Powerwall and if i increase load further it only draws the additional demand from the grid with the Powerwall still exporting at maximum power.
I just assumed that it was what happened when you maxed them out continuously for too long. Thankfully not too much of a worry as we don't ever realistically draw that kind of power in the "real world"
One aspect that confuses me is how many units can be installed in total. With the Powerwall 2 apparently it's 10 units, maximum 3 per stack or sandwich. All I could find is one website saying you can stack 3 or max 40 kWh. Unclear if they're confusing with individual stacks or the total number of batteries in one system... do you have any info on that?
It's 4 stacks of 4. 4 units max with integrated inverter, then 3 DC expansion units for each inverter unit, so 16 total (216 kWh). Thank you Ernesto who installs these for helping me clear that up!
Hi, what’s your firm version? I just got a PW3, and it drops the solar production when battery is discharging. I saw you have a good solar production when it’s discharging. So wondering if my system has some issues
We're on 24.12.3. Your system might have some issues. Solar should be priority in covering the house load and then powerwall picks up the difference with no change in solar output
We are getting ready to add 2 PW3s to our 12.5 Enphase PV system. Given the 30% Tax Credit and the $300 per kWh CASH REBATE (27 kWh X $300 = $9100) from my utility, I'll be OTD for about $17K. That's about $5K less than a 24kWh GENERAC generator I was initially looking at. I've crunched my numbers every way I can and the 2 PW3s and my PV system can power our small new high-efficiency villa indefinitely, with little compromise. We'll be an "ISLAND OF PEACE and SAFETY" in a sea of chaos.
That's a killer incentive from your utility! Do you have to agree to VPPs or anything to receive that incentive?
You're going to love the Powerwalls. They truly are the icing on the cake for home solar generation!!
I had a Raspberry Pi lying around. I put Home Assistant on it. For example, it shuts off car charging at 4 pm. If the cars start charging at 2 and need to charge for three hours, it runs an hour into peak rates at 11.5 kw. I also use it to limit solar exports; I went from 50% solar exports last year to about 20% this year. I wrote a number of automations in Home Assistant to do this. I was off NEM 2.0 for a number of years, long story. For someone on NEM 3.0 it may be handy. I'm still waiting for the charge on solar option on the Tesla apps. Till then I use the automations. My 2020 era 7.6 KW solar and 2 V2 Powerwalls cannot run my entire house. One of two AC units and the Tesla charger are not powerwall backed up. And I need to add a soft start the the PW backed up AC unit. You've got a sweet system.
That sounds pretty sweet! When you say you use it to limit solar exports, do you mean by initiating charging? Or do you have it automate any other processes? For us, in the summer, I'll specifically save our laundry for the middle of the day on my days off to better utilize our solar.
My hope is that they introduce a feature to prioritize charging the Powerwalls to my set percentage before initiating Charge on Solar. I'm sure it's coming, but waiting stinks :)
Thanks for the compliment, I definitely tried to get the most system I could get! I wanted the whole house backed up no matter what.
In order to limit exports automatically I wrote automations to change the charging amps (to limit powerwall draw down and those losses), set powerwall reserve levels during the day (to allow the Powerwalls to charge up before peak rates if the A/C came on or solar production was low, etc. ), and start and stop charging at specific states of charge, etc. while running the powerwall in "Self Powered Mode" to try and use solar first before PW charging. Manually, if it was going to be a sunny day, I'd draw the powerwall down by car charging to make room for the solar coming in. I could automate that process as well. And like you, manually delay appliances, but the car charging and A/C are the heavy hitters. Waiting for the app updates as well, but wanted to limit my exports while I was completely off NEM and getting zero credit for them. I believe "charge on solar" will only work when the Powerwalls are at about 100% and the system would start exporting. For my car I would pick something like below 50% "charge now" and between 50 and 80 charge on solar exports. For my wife's car, I'd pick 70 and 80 respectively, if I understand how it's supposed to work. Yes, I know this is all extremely twiddly and complicated, but I was throwing away about 5 MWH a year, half of my production, for a while there, due to that lack of NEM. Limiting exports now with NEM 2.0 saves the Non Bypassable Charges. I believe these costs are lower for me with SCE than you with PG&E.
@@TheMahkus BTW, if the grid was actually down or disconnected, that Powerwall Reset would result in power loss until it rebooted. That's why I need an A/C soft start, in case the A/C is running when the grid goes down.
@@stephengwinn6859Wow, you really got down into it and set it up nicely! I anticipate that once our Model 3 gets Charge on Solar we probably won't export too much to the grid anymore.
Odd that your Powerwall gateway reset like that and switched to fully supplying from the grid. When i ramp up my household load it is supplied first from Powerwall and if i increase load further it only draws the additional demand from the grid with the Powerwall still exporting at maximum power.
I just assumed that it was what happened when you maxed them out continuously for too long. Thankfully not too much of a worry as we don't ever realistically draw that kind of power in the "real world"
One aspect that confuses me is how many units can be installed in total. With the Powerwall 2 apparently it's 10 units, maximum 3 per stack or sandwich. All I could find is one website saying you can stack 3 or max 40 kWh. Unclear if they're confusing with individual stacks or the total number of batteries in one system... do you have any info on that?
It's 4 stacks of 4. 4 units max with integrated inverter, then 3 DC expansion units for each inverter unit, so 16 total (216 kWh). Thank you Ernesto who installs these for helping me clear that up!
Hi, what’s your firm version? I just got a PW3, and it drops the solar production when battery is discharging. I saw you have a good solar production when it’s discharging. So wondering if my system has some issues
We're on 24.12.3.
Your system might have some issues. Solar should be priority in covering the house load and then powerwall picks up the difference with no change in solar output