I just signed up for Tesla Electric in TX. Do your powerwalls sustain you during a heat wave? I have two and when the AC is in use I will drain them quick and have to use the grid. I’m priced in at 14 cents. I usually sell back at 2 cents. That puts me way upside down. So how does your electric bill look if you can’t depend on the money from those events? I’m leaning towards leaving for a plan that just gives me 1 to 1. Even though I won’t make money at least I can build up credit and only deal with TDU
Hi Johnny! Our 3 Powerwalls do sustain us during a heatwave. We have a 1900 square foot house, about 5 years old or so with a lot of cathedral ceilings. During the summer when it's hot, we usually start using the batteries in earnest around 4 or 5pm as our east facing panels don't produce much late in the afternoon. At that point, they have to last at least until about 7am or so, about 14 hours. Our AC uses about 5 kW, so we have 8 hours of solid run time theoretically. We run the house around 72, so AC usually runs about 4-5 hours a night on the hottest nights. We run the dishwasher most nights and washer/electric dryer too. Some nights we get close to using the whole 40 kWh capacity, but that's pretty rare. We are on a net energy metering plan, so we don't have the free flowing rate market that you are dealing with. For us, although our NEM 2.0 setup might not be as lucrative as a freezing ice storm in Texas, it seems pretty fair in terms of compensation. Especially if you add in the virtual power plant program! Of course during a VPP event we'd drain our PWs back to the grid, so we'd be using peak rate energy and grid energy afterwards. But we are guaranteed $2/kWh during those events and the most expensive rate for us is 47 cents/kWh. We earn NEM credits though, so we don't actually pay the 47 cents. Seems like your system may have it's benefits sometimes...other times not!
I just signed up for Tesla Electric in TX. Do your powerwalls sustain you during a heat wave? I have two and when the AC is in use I will drain them quick and have to use the grid. I’m priced in at 14 cents. I usually sell back at 2 cents. That puts me way upside down. So how does your electric bill look if you can’t depend on the money from those events? I’m leaning towards leaving for a plan that just gives me 1 to 1. Even though I won’t make money at least I can build up credit and only deal with TDU
Hi Johnny! Our 3 Powerwalls do sustain us during a heatwave. We have a 1900 square foot house, about 5 years old or so with a lot of cathedral ceilings. During the summer when it's hot, we usually start using the batteries in earnest around 4 or 5pm as our east facing panels don't produce much late in the afternoon. At that point, they have to last at least until about 7am or so, about 14 hours. Our AC uses about 5 kW, so we have 8 hours of solid run time theoretically. We run the house around 72, so AC usually runs about 4-5 hours a night on the hottest nights. We run the dishwasher most nights and washer/electric dryer too. Some nights we get close to using the whole 40 kWh capacity, but that's pretty rare.
We are on a net energy metering plan, so we don't have the free flowing rate market that you are dealing with. For us, although our NEM 2.0 setup might not be as lucrative as a freezing ice storm in Texas, it seems pretty fair in terms of compensation. Especially if you add in the virtual power plant program!
Of course during a VPP event we'd drain our PWs back to the grid, so we'd be using peak rate energy and grid energy afterwards. But we are guaranteed $2/kWh during those events and the most expensive rate for us is 47 cents/kWh. We earn NEM credits though, so we don't actually pay the 47 cents.
Seems like your system may have it's benefits sometimes...other times not!