Thank you so much for sharing the information. I am considering installing 2 PW3 without solar. I live in Texas; we have free nights plan: 8PM thru 6AM, our rate is ¢0.00 With PW3 charging during the nights, and discharge during the days. We may have $0 energy bills.
Go for it!! Just make sure that the 27 kWh capacity of the two Powerwalls is enough for you to last from 6am to 8pm without needing to touch the grid. Using AC and such it'd be tough for us to do that during the summer with 3 Powerwalls. If you're thinking about it use your referral code (or mine if you need it!) and take advantage of the $500 off before it ends on April 30! Everything is refundable up until you accept designs, so might as well lock in some savings while you think about it!
You could already do this through a third party installer. I got two PowerWall 2's back in 2021 without solar. I use them for emergency backup and time-shift my loads to draw from the batteries during peak hours since I switched to a time of use plan with my utility. I would of gotten solar if I could have but can't due to living in a townhome. The biggest drawback to a non-solar install is the cost, these things are EXPENSIVE and you don't get any tax credits/rebates with a battery only install! I hope long term to see battery costs come way down so they are more affordable for the average household. It's a really nice system to have.
The old tax credit (the one we claimed in 2021) required the Powerwalls to be only solar charged and not grid charged for 5 years to claim the credit. The updated tax credit no longer requires that - so you can claim the tax credit nowadays for a Powerwall only install. Without the solar (or with cheaper rates) the time shift of the loads only will prolong your payoff period, but I agree, I really lile having the backup protection of the Powerwalls. And for us, it pretty much keeps us completely off the grid except for during the winter!
@@TheMahkus I just had a third PowerWall added to my system this month so maybe I can get the tax credit on that install? That would be exciting! Of course if I had known that I might have opted for 2 more instead of one. I did a run time test last summer and got 16 hours with two of them. Three brings me to around 24 hours estimated in a summer outage. Of course that was without any load shedding so in a actual prolonged outage I could probably stretch longer. In winter I could probably get multiple days since I have a gas furnace.
@@TheMahkus Sweet! I've been putting together a sort of tiny-home on wheels build and have been looking for a battery solution to go with the solar. Since Tesla let's you buy these without solar now it might actually be a viable option
These are the same chemistry as the LR variant car batteries, no LFP powerwalls yet. We have two EVs also so there's about 200 kWh of batteries in our garage at night.
@@TheMahkus can’t install them in my city, fire chief won’t approve anything other than LFP, will have to go with Franklin WH, which is uses LFP, or wait for Tesla to change to LFP
Good video. Have you checked for a ev charging rate at 12-6am for example. I think some CA utilities offer it at 0.14 kwh They do not have a specific way to know what energy goes in the car so you can put it into anything you want.
Hi Eric! We briefly looked at changing rate plans but since we oversized our system we really only use the grid during winter months. We decided for the two months or so where we're not behind the meter, it's all good. If we weren't net exporters it would be a different story! But for now we're just getting paid wholesale on the excess solar production so the rate plan doesn't make a difference to us (but would if you are doing a stand alone Powerwall!!)
@@NilesHlavacek When we lived near Sacramento and had SMUD they just had all 12-6a use discounted by 1.5 cents when you registered that you had an EV. No data collected.
I want to know why solar companies are charging $30k to turn key two Powerwalls. Seems like a huge profit taking on their part? What was the charge for installing your power walls?
Powerwalls were around $26,000 for all three pre-tax credit, they had a $2500 installation cost which was waived because I had solar installed at the same time. This was back in 2021 though.
Has anyone seen an interactive spreadsheet that can perform the ROI calculation? The price delta currently given by Xcel Energy is too small in my opinion for any possible payback, BUT I want to prove it by actually crunching real numbers.
As long as you don't have any restrictions on grid charging the battery, then yep you could. You should double check you can do that first though. Figure that the difference between free and the cost x 13.5 kWh is how much you'd save each battery discharge cycle. But yea...shouldn't be too long if you can do that every night,
Thank you so much for sharing the information. I am considering installing 2 PW3 without solar. I live in Texas; we have free nights plan: 8PM thru 6AM, our rate is ¢0.00
With PW3 charging during the nights, and discharge during the days. We may have $0 energy bills.
Go for it!! Just make sure that the 27 kWh capacity of the two Powerwalls is enough for you to last from 6am to 8pm without needing to touch the grid. Using AC and such it'd be tough for us to do that during the summer with 3 Powerwalls.
If you're thinking about it use your referral code (or mine if you need it!) and take advantage of the $500 off before it ends on April 30! Everything is refundable up until you accept designs, so might as well lock in some savings while you think about it!
So interesting to see Tesla offer Powerwalls as a stand-alone item for purchase. Thank you for the explanation Mahkus!
Thanks Ian! Combined with the new IRA not requiring them to be charged via panels makes stand alone powerwalls a very interesting option!
You could already do this through a third party installer. I got two PowerWall 2's back in 2021 without solar. I use them for emergency backup and time-shift my loads to draw from the batteries during peak hours since I switched to a time of use plan with my utility. I would of gotten solar if I could have but can't due to living in a townhome. The biggest drawback to a non-solar install is the cost, these things are EXPENSIVE and you don't get any tax credits/rebates with a battery only install! I hope long term to see battery costs come way down so they are more affordable for the average household. It's a really nice system to have.
The old tax credit (the one we claimed in 2021) required the Powerwalls to be only solar charged and not grid charged for 5 years to claim the credit. The updated tax credit no longer requires that - so you can claim the tax credit nowadays for a Powerwall only install.
Without the solar (or with cheaper rates) the time shift of the loads only will prolong your payoff period, but I agree, I really lile having the backup protection of the Powerwalls. And for us, it pretty much keeps us completely off the grid except for during the winter!
@@TheMahkus I just had a third PowerWall added to my system this month so maybe I can get the tax credit on that install? That would be exciting! Of course if I had known that I might have opted for 2 more instead of one. I did a run time test last summer and got 16 hours with two of them. Three brings me to around 24 hours estimated in a summer outage. Of course that was without any load shedding so in a actual prolonged outage I could probably stretch longer. In winter I could probably get multiple days since I have a gas furnace.
@@samnewby9783You should definitely look into the credit!
Could you use a power wall in an off-grid system?
Yep, you definitely could!
@@TheMahkus Sweet! I've been putting together a sort of tiny-home on wheels build and have been looking for a battery solution to go with the solar. Since Tesla let's you buy these without solar now it might actually be a viable option
are the new Powerwalls LFP? I won’t install anything else in my house, for safety
These are the same chemistry as the LR variant car batteries, no LFP powerwalls yet. We have two EVs also so there's about 200 kWh of batteries in our garage at night.
@@TheMahkus can’t install them in my city, fire chief won’t approve anything other than LFP, will have to go with Franklin WH, which is uses LFP, or wait for Tesla to change to LFP
Oh no! That stinks.
Good video. Have you checked for a ev charging rate at 12-6am for example. I think some CA utilities offer it at 0.14 kwh They do not have a specific way to know what energy goes in the car so you can put it into anything you want.
Hi Eric! We briefly looked at changing rate plans but since we oversized our system we really only use the grid during winter months. We decided for the two months or so where we're not behind the meter, it's all good. If we weren't net exporters it would be a different story! But for now we're just getting paid wholesale on the excess solar production so the rate plan doesn't make a difference to us (but would if you are doing a stand alone Powerwall!!)
Free EV charging plans I've seen in Texas actually interface with certain car types to credit actual energy used to charge. Not sure about CA
@@NilesHlavacek When we lived near Sacramento and had SMUD they just had all 12-6a use discounted by 1.5 cents when you registered that you had an EV. No data collected.
I want to know why solar companies are charging $30k to turn key two Powerwalls. Seems like a huge profit taking on their part? What was the charge for installing your power walls?
Powerwalls were around $26,000 for all three pre-tax credit, they had a $2500 installation cost which was waived because I had solar installed at the same time. This was back in 2021 though.
Has anyone seen an interactive spreadsheet that can perform the ROI calculation?
The price delta currently given by Xcel Energy is too small in my opinion for any possible payback, BUT I want to prove it by actually crunching real numbers.
I'm also interested in this if you find one!
What if I have free night plan? Can I charge at nights for free and discharge during the days? I will pay it off in no time,yes?
As long as you don't have any restrictions on grid charging the battery, then yep you could. You should double check you can do that first though. Figure that the difference between free and the cost x 13.5 kWh is how much you'd save each battery discharge cycle. But yea...shouldn't be too long if you can do that every night,
12-14 years ROI. That is not an investment, it’s a lifestyle choice.
Indeed. The Powerwalls saved my butt when the power went out before our daughter's birthday party. Worth it for those couple hours alone!