thanks for catching the error in the final weekly totals. It turns out the way Tesla reports the data doesn't take into account the time dimensions. So here are the updated numbers, basically divide by 12 and you've got it - twitter.com/BenSullins/status/1329529416855158784
If you’ve only got a 10% deficit, surely you could do a quick audit on your usage & hone it, to best use the available solar & battery? I feel like that would make a great & natural extension of this video series & a satisfying challenge for you and your fam ;)
Ben, The reason your solar is getting shut down is because it’s producing more power than the powerwall can accept. Being disconnected from the grid, that power has no place to go so the solar has to be turned off. You could connect your car and adjust the charging amps used to charge it and allow that energy to be captured in the car & powerwall but it’s a delicate balancing act. Also, turn your water heater off at night and back on when the solar is up to conserve usage overnight. If Tesla allowed a vehicle to powerwall connection, you would be able to use all of the solar power you can generate in a day. Vehicle to grid has many issues but vehicle to powerwall could be seamless.
I was going to say something similar. My powerwalls get full around noon so it would shut off solar then. If off grid my plan would be to set car to add maybe 10 kwh starting at 11:30 am which should keep the solar running and let me capture that otherwise lost energy.
@@darrellsellers Additional Powerwall is not much help. He’s capturing most of what he’s generating from solar. It’s just that he can’t charge to 100% of the Powerwall capacity due to the slow charge rate. If he added a Powerwall, he’d end up with a 66% charge in the 3 powerwalls and out the extra cost. I.E.; not many additional kWh to carry him through the night. Adding more solar makes the situation worse because higher kw output from solar means the Powerwall has to cut off the solar system sooner as they can’t absorb that much power when they are at a higher % of charge.
Vehicle to P.W. is the way to go for long term power outages. Install one P.W. for short term outages and plug the car into the P.W. for long term situations. With the big car battery as backup users might be able to survive with less panels as the big car battery is there to soak up all the solar the panels can produce. This capability might induce more customers to solar and EVs. Finally, would be interesting if Ben could break out his energy usage, particularly the AC consumption.
@@aussie2uGA That really sucks, the government controlling our own choices of life preventing us from prosper financially and technologically is really fučked up
@@aussie2uGA florida, the "sunshine state" has been historically pressured by oil companies to ban solar outright, put restrictions, taxes' etc. most other states dont have these ridiculous issues. gotta love the GOP
@@aussie2uGA You can’t cancel your power service in FL but you can flip the main disconnect as Ben did. In my case, I’d still have to pay FPL $9 a month. It’s worth the $9/m to use them as my battery and save the charge/discharge cycles on my powerwalls.
@@daveborinski3021 With the huge increase of rooftop solar the utility company can't continue to be everyone's free battery. They need to pay you much less for your overly abundant afternoon solar power and charge you much more for the scarce and expensive evening power. Making you much more motivated to charge/discharge your Powerwall daily.
@@coreyverisario6570 it depends. If those are LED fixtures, the amount of power is MINUSCULE: even a pretty beefy 15W LED lamp only pulls 360Wh in an entire day. Also keep on mind that Ben here is working with a camera and lightning is important: he said it's just doing regular stuff and video production is part of that.
It's hard to tell. The camera will adjust to the light level, so while it may look bright for a kitchen you need more light than minimum. Sometimes when the sun is low it's not quite enough.
Very glad to see this video. This test is actually a success and represents great news. The issue here was too high energy demand from your family. My monthly average usage for the year is 1002 kWh in a 3750 ft2 house, while you’re using that in a week. The solution is called conservation. In other words: think about the energy being used, and how to get more efficient with it
House cleaning involves vacuuming which is a huge inductive load. This is the problem with solar air conditioning. The rotating motor and/or heating element needs overwhelm the supply. Great post.
Seen from Europe, that 28kWh daily energy use (without EV charging) sounds huge. There must be scope for upping your energy efficiency. Insulation, external shading, better night time air change rates, higher efficiency appliances, LED lighting.
@@timberthewolf733 If you make the coffee and shut it off, it's not that much total energy. This guy has some serious standby consumption that should be addressed, instead his answer would be to throw more solar panels at it. Also if you want to be off-grid, some control over optimizing the air conditioner usage to not run out of power should be done. You definitely would do it if you actually lost grid power. It seems he wasn't really trying to conserve much energy.
@@GuruMN He literally said at the start of the video that they werent going to do much to reduce consumption besides not charging their Teslas, as there wasnt really a need
@@RandomCommentDue I know what he said, but it was well demonstrated that there clearly was a need and his experiment wouldn't have "failed" if he had taken care of the standby consumption issues. ..which he should anyway, even if it wasn't a solar or powerwall system because there is some serious power waste happening while they sleep apart from the air conditioning usage.
I have a 8kw system with two PWs, This size will keep me running with three adults in a 2.6k sq/ft home. This includes running air conditioning at peak time of day.
Ben, using 1MWh in a week is pretty extreme! I run a few servers 24x7 and use about 1MWh per month, and even that is way above average use for where I am in Budapest. If the grid died for real, you could easily tone down your usage to match and make it work indefinitely.
@@urwerling here in italy we use 100kw a week however my powerwall with back up does not work if the grid is down here is not possible apparently.. i have a back up and all it does is power your house only with the battery but the panels will not work so the battery drains in a less than a day
I agree with the many comments about 985 kWh in 5 days. That would average out to more than 4000 kWh in a month and that is not including charging an EV. This would be 4 times the US average, something seems way off.
I just finalize my contract with Tesla for the solar roof with18 kWh and 3 power walls. So based off this video I will have way more than enough to go off the grid. Thanks for the info
Thanks for this video. I just installed 2 Powerwalls and it took 2 days to charge them with two solar systems. Our original system installed in 2004. It is 18 panels(215 watts each) which is a 3.8kW system. Then in 2019, we added 8 panels(326W each) for a 2.6kW system. Total combined 6.4kW's. The solar company quoted a 12-panel system as the smallest they would install. Like you said, they are in the business of making money. Unfortunately, with the pool solar panels on the roof, only 8 panels could be installed. They agreed to install the 8 panels. It is March 11, 2021, in the San Francisco Bay area, so the system, with the weather right now is working ok. I was trying to find out how long this system would carry the house with an extended power outage. Your video and analysis is very helpful. Thanks so much for doing it.
10:54 sat there stating still getting solar, so light outside but lights on behind him. I imagine the outcome a lot better with ‘some’ power conservation!
I watch a lot of your videos but this one was exceptionally informative. Great experiment, love the approach to it! So the question would be, given this setup, is it worth switching off grid every 4-5 days? Are there any meaningful financial gains to maintaining that type of schedule?
looked pretty good! In a real emergency you would have been a little more conservative with AC etc.. You should be able to stay off grid for a long, long time. Ofcourse with vehicle to grid, you could have refueled your Teslas at a supercharger, and add that to your powerwalls.
Holy energy usage! I live in Michigan and don't shy away from using power or air conditioning. Run a dehumidifier 24/7 in the summer as well. Highest month was 566kWh. House is 60% the size of yours. But that's just amazingly high for just a week. You doubled my highest month usage in less than 7 days. I'm going to have to work harder to catch up.
I really enjoyed the test. it was fascinating that you said no cut backs , just going on with life. NOW I want to see IF you cut back and managed systems in the house how long could you go......
We are just starting on our solar journey soon, working with a local installer here in St Louis and we oversized our system by 22%. Our annual consumption is 11,600 kWh which includes our Tesla and our PV system is projected to generate 14,865 kWh/yr with 31 Q Cell 405-watt panels and 31 Enphase IQ8A Inverters. The overage should cover future needs, batteries, and system degradation. We will add battery backup next year, hopefully, the Tesla PW 3 will be out as we want LFP batteries, if not we'll probably go with Enpahse to match their micro-inverters and other equipment being installed. We will add a soft-start device to our 3-ton AC so we should be good to go.
I knew it! Going off grid with power walls are the most convenient and efficient way to do it! Thanks Ben for putting your home to the test. Too bad that Nespresso couldn’t make it through the shot. Zen from Costa Rica.
Those spurious gaps in the solar production are when the Powerwalls become full and the gateway turns off the panels. After the Powerwalls discharge a bit, the gateway turns the panels back on to charge the Powerwalls and supply AC to the home.
5:58 There is more solar being produced than what the house and powerwall combined are using, as powerwall is at 95% it can only take so much current and there is no grid to route extra solar. Also solar does not have the ability to scale the production of electricity, it either goes all in or completely off. That is why solar cuts off and system fall backs to the powerwall. Edit: Also extra panels wont help for the aforementioned reason, solar you have is more than enough you need more battery backup. Also you can try plugging in your teslas when solar shuts off and check if the solar starts starts again.
Dude, you just need a few more panels. The recommendation is 5kw per powerwall. So I have a 14kw system with 2 powerwalls in Texas. I did a TON of research and number crunching, and I am a master electrician so I may have an advantage when looking at the data pre-puchase. A 'Sense' home energy monitor REALLY helped me figure out our daily and over night usage.
Thank you for this video! We just Leased a new Tesla system and got a system that will cost us close to what our electric bill was running. Now after watching your video, we learned a lot about watch the system can do!! Thank you!!! We are still making adjustments on our usage........but these are hard choices. Thank you for your information.
Great video - thanks - and important to watch right to the end to get the main message - install sufficient solar right at the start. We have 12 kW on the roof, around 10kWh of battery storage (not Powerwall) and 2 EVs. We have frequent power outages during which we run aircon and pool pump only during the day and use the outdoor BBQ rather than the oven in the evening. With these precautions we can manage indefinitely and comfortably without the grid and still get a useful charge into the EVs.
Ben - I enjoy watching your all your other videos (on Tesla and others) - I have a pretty similar setup - I tested mine over a month when I got my powerwall setup live in early 2018 - we did our own solar panel setup - permits and electrical work - mostly for the same reasons you outlined that no one will support you later for maintenance or changes. We have 30 panels (10kW) for a 7.6 kW inverter so we over provisioned the panels to compensate for cloud cover etc. Some of those gaps you see could be a result of cloud cover or the solar inverter switching off thinking the battery was already full - you may have to play with the inverter settings on that depending on what model you have. We also have the 2 powerwalls like in your setup. We replaced all gas appliances (water heater/home heater) with heat pump (100% electric) to use our excess capacity fully.
Ideally without a generator you would want a bit more solar and double the battery storage to have the ability to survive a couple of non-sunny days during a heavy storm without utility power. Nice setup though
8:20 the gaps in the solar generation are the inverter turning off b/c the powerwalls are too full to accept any energy. If you hit 10 solar referrals you could get a free powerwall so your system could accept more solar energy durning the day. (unless your powerwall wasn't full at the time? then I dunno )
You had lights on during the day. If your ac is running a lot is because your house is not energy efficient enough. You could use a heat pump water heater also that can cool the space while heating the water. That ten percent daily loss could be easily eliminated.
Thanks for the experiment! We currently have an 8.84KW system, but no EVs as yet, and since there is no tiered metering in the Austin area, really no reason to justify a Powerwall- our net metering is a dollar-for-dollar trade. But if we can afford it down the road, we would like to add another 5-6KW and a couple of batteries to offset our future EVs. You might consider the same thing- no one will install two panels for your, but if you add another 10-12 panels to completely offset your EV usage, that would probably get it done. And maybe one more Powerwall.
That’s why you guys have to look into Enphase batteries, with smart switch. They will not trigger your battery during the day and it will be fully charged
Your breakdown at the end was super helpful, looking to buy a house and adding solar and batteries. Was thinking of getting the batteries first and so on but you made a really good point on just getting the whole enchilada at once and really take advantage of those tax credits. Thanks
We have very similar Tesla Powerwall/solar panel system setups and we both live in San Diego. October is not an ideal time to do this type of experiment in SD. Its still very hot because of the Santa Anas so you need tons of energy for AC AND the length of daytime gets dramatically shorter as time goes on. Bad combo. I've only had my system for a year now, but from what I could tell June was probably the best month that balanced both relatively mild weather at the beginning of the month with longer daytime. Having said all of that, even then I think 7 days might be risky but I think you'd make it in June. Great video showing the strengths and limitations of the Powerwalls!
Thanks for sharing I have a powerwall and 26 panels myself. We have lots of outages because of SCE power safety shut offs. Battery comes in handy big time. Was thinking of buying another battery as well. Thanks for info!
This is one of your best videos. Really well done. I especially liked the shot of the coffee maker when the power went out. Really informative video overall! Thank you!
So I know this is from ten months ago, but my question is; How many solar panels does your house have? how many tons is your AC unit? Also how long of a duration do you keep the AC unit on? Also how much kilowatts does it consume when in operation? Have you thought about Dyson fans or any fans for that matter as it wouldn’t have so much of an impact on your Tesla Battery?
Ben, this is a Brilliant idea & analysis! 27kw doesn't seem like much! Exactly what I wanted to know... Ha-ha. I really want to build a home from scratch with Tesla Roof, PowerWalls & enough power for 1-2 Tesla's.
I love this, I have solar in Texas, no power wall. 19.4kw system it appears to produce around 80kwh average per day sometimes though I burn thru more power than this per day.
Ben, nice to see some others try this out. Recommend any month other than Oct-March. Find Oct and March are transition months where Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb are all the months my system runs behind production. Can be seen by watching grey bars on weekly charts and when do you take from grid. Planning a backup generator to be able to charge during Oct-March to keep batteries charged if propane cost is below grid. Summer test with full ac raging is pretty cool. Expect months are possible during summer with no sacrifice to energy use. Feels like real energy independence.
Thanks for the great vid. What I'm reading here is that if hurricane hits and I don't see much sun for about three days, I'm going to lose all the juice. I think I'm going to go with a standby natural gas generator, albeit it'll be a bit loud.
When your battery is getting full and potential solar doesn’t have a good place to go, the solar turns off as a protective measure. It’s by design. It’s in the “data”. You can do stuff like charge car at variable rate, or run clothes drier stratigically to sip the extra production.
Ben, Nice presentation. It seems like you don't know how to do without. If your going off the Grid, then shut down the A.C., and go to a swamp cooler. It would save you ALOT of Kw. Swamp coolers run on 110 v the A.C. runs on 220v. Reduce the lights to only shine when you need them. Kill the water Heater, If your going off the Grid,,, GO OFF THE GRID! Try this again, you will make 10 days at least!! I enjoy your blogs. Darryl
Here in Poland only rich people have ac. Its cold now since its autumn already so my energy usage grew to 250 kwh for the past two months - just paid the bill. Its just pretty small apartment like 40 meters square. So I use in 8 months what you used in a week it seems.
Great video. I like how you really tested the system out by not changing your daily habits. When we bought our portable generator, I tested it out doing things as normal, just to see how it handled our daily usage. (Don't want to find this out during a real emergency) As others and you have mentioned, adding additional solar panels should help with recharging the Powerwall's to full capacity everyday. My concern with solar and battery back up system, is how will you manage without sun for a few days, in a power outage. Even though you had sun each day during your test, you showed a weakness in the system, a lot of people don't talk about in their review videos. Might want to invest in a portable generator, as backup power, to your solar system. The last thing you want is to not be prepared, if your solar system fails. Our generator is connected to our Natural Gas line, so no need to refill generator or store fuel. (I still keep 15 gal. of gasoline though)
I know you said that you had the air conditioner running during the test. We in Australia work on C not F so I can only explain it in C. When we run our air conditioning at home, we run it at about 24 C due to the fact that we don’t like to cold and they use less current. I have no idea what temp settings you used but this can also affect your power demands on the power walls.👍🏻
Not bad, 4 days, still running AC. If the grid actually goes out and you know it won't come back for a month, you could probably cut your power use down low enough to get by indefinitely. Might not be pleasant if it happens in the summer, but not unlivable.
If you live in San Diego County, check with Mark Snyder Electric. He added 1 KW a couple of years ago to our 2.5 KW system he put in for us 20 years ago. We make 1300 KW extra a year. We got a used Chevy Volt in March 2020 and we still made extra.
man you guys use a lot of kWh in CA. Here in MA, I use 1000 kwh MAX in a given month. 2,400 sq ft colonial built in 1913. 4 Window units cranking AC in the summer months.
Here in southwest Colorado, we get about a month and a half of hot days (90 to 95deg) in June and July then the monsoons kick in through to October when the temp goes back to the 70s. I'll try to add some solar panels to boost the refill capacity. Cheers, S.
You have inspired me to do this experiment myself. This would be very dependent on the time of year here in North Queensland Australia. Currently I'm producing in summer on average 35kWh of solar a day from 6kW panels through a 5kW inverter. We use about 17kWh a day. I just put a timer circuit in my Electric Hot water to be on only from 9AM - 4PM to reduce the depth the Powerwall cycles. Making a big difference. It is interesting to see what happens when it cannot put the energy back into the grid it looks like it cuts the solar of early.
It depends on where you live. If you are closer to the city, the high draw appliances can be problematic, Tesla Power Walls have only a nominal draw of 5000 watts ( 240V x 30 Amps). Generac has a competing product which as a nominal draw of 9000 watts which would be better if you live in a rural setting. Power Walls are the cheapest option
Great video man 👍🏾 Especially with what’s going on in Texas rn. Apparently there will be A LOT of future power wall buyers in TX in the upcoming months after this!
I wonder how far would you get if you use only essentials and decreased comfort zone. There´s plenty of room to save energy. What about to try real blackout scenario, are you up for it? :) Great vid btw. I would like solar for my house and this helps with my planning.
Totally agree with maximise solar on installation, particularly at 51 degrees latitude. You could also consider putting better insulation in your house if the aircon is eating energy in the day. Good video Ben.
Thanks for this real world test. I am currently configuring a solar/powerwall set up for an off the grid container housing project. 30 percent extra solar sounds about right! Thx.
very informative experiment; definitely helps us lay people better understand the flow of grid/generated/stored energy usage and its practical application. thanks for freeing the data. One of my favorite videos that you've done to date
You have at least 4 spotlights on in the kitchen behind you. Are they LED?. It is a bright sunny day. Have you used a clothes dryer? The next morning when @ 7% power wall, you have an outdoor spot light blazing away ... maybe more. I can see only one behind you in the patio area.
You mentioned upsizing your solar system in the beginning, which I agree with 125%, but in NY the PSC/utility rule was (is?) that it can only be built out to 90% of electric power usage, based on the full prior year. (To counter-act this, perhaps maximize home-charging one or more EV’s the year prior to going solar, and perhaps do some home heating with electricity (I have a portable AC that also can be run as a heat-pump heater) rather than the normal furnace, etc., etc.?)
by running your ac at night, that will drain your power wall. I dont use my ac at night because I open up the windows, and things cool down. Anyway without the ac on all night, and adjusting your thermostat at 78, the power wall will not drain, and you can still charge your ev at least a couple times a week.
You use Tableau. Nice! I would love to visualize your data. Certified Desktop Specialist here. Maybe I could reduce the workload visualizing the data. Let me know! Shane
Hi, Ben, thank you for all the information you provided. Extremely helpful. I subscribed your channel when I saw your other session. While I found this one week experiement you did is VERY interesting and practical. I'm thinking of getting one system in where I live outside LA where should be similar to where you are. I have a few follow on questions on your week long experiment. (1) You mentioned that you didn't charge your EV during the experiment periord. However, I heard you mentioned that the Tesla Powerwall was fully charged around noon time, which means your house was powered by solar from your 16 panels, not powerwall, during the day. So do you feel there might be any extra power (just estimate, since you don't have "sell back" number as you swithed off from the frid) from your 16 solar panels to charge your EVs during the day? Since you work from home, charging EVs during the day or night makes no difference. (2) Also, because the Powerwall can be charged to full around noon, but its level still seems continue to drop at your evening checking point as each day goes by. Does that mean your house's afternoon power consumption is more than that 16 panels can provide, so it has to dip into the Powerwall for energy before the night starts? I saw the weather were similar during these days, and the powerwall was charged to full around noon everyday, so what make it continue to drop? Is it your afternoon usage gradually increased during those days? Or other reasons? I think if your daytime usage is similar, while the powerwall can be charged to full everyday, then if you can make through the 1st day, you should be able to make through each and every reast of days. I'm a bit not clear here. Thank you again, Ben. Hope hear some further comments from you.
Simple solution.....consume 20-30 less power by buying more energy efficient appliances use ground sources heat pump for cooling which is more energy efficient than air-conditioning since it move heat from your house into the ground which is a massive heat sink. Normal mode for heat pumps is to move heat from the earth into a house but you need to use it in reverse mode. Search online for Geothermal heat pump or just Ground Source heat pump.
@BMW R1200GS Adventure there must be something wrong with the design that you looked at since there is a heat exchanger. One side is the house piping and the other side is the piping that goes underground. So the piping that goes underground is new and thus is designed. The heat pump just pumps the opposite way and takes heat from you house and dumps it into the ground. The ground has so much thermal mass that it would take a nuclear bomb to raise it substantially.
If be super interested in the actual power usage of the home. I managed to save £70/month, as soon as I installed an Owl electricity monitor & could see the effect each electrical item had on the home.
So I have a 9kw system with 1 powerwall. Hurricane Isiaias came rolling through and i went 3 days with no power from the grid and my system performed wonderfully. However, there were a few things I did learn. My system is designed so that my central ac shuts down in the event of grid failure. Isiaias struck in midsummer and i thought the lack of ac would be an issue and it really wasn't. I have 2 very large fans. I opened all the windows and turned the fans on and it didn't get too hot. Interestingly enough I had to turn one off when I cooked. I couldn't even boil water with all the air movement. And of course, no baking. It would heat up the house even more. I also have a portable ac in the basement so if the heat ever became unbearable, we did have a nice area to escape to. The reason why his system would shut off midday is battery will not accept more than a 5kw charge at once. My system averages around 8kw or 9kw noon time during the summer. Normally it would kick any excess power to the grid but in a failure is not able to do so. So it shuts down the panels until that 5kw threshold can be safely met and it switches to the battery. During a grid failure to you want your battery at 100%as long as soon as possible and as long as possible. So I simply changed a few of my daily habits. Normally I'd run my dishwasher at night. Instead, I ran at 11am. I washed clothes and turned on all the lights and vent fans in the house and that solved the problem. At one point, we did have 2 straight days of cloudy weather and I did get a little nervous. But the sun did eventually come out and we were fine. At some point, I dowant to add an extra battery just for added security but I can say this system does work! I recommend it.
I agree, I have a smaller house but I use less than that amount of electricity in a month and I have an electric geyser and stove as well as a deepfreeze, fridge etc. No EV's however.
Well insulated buildings uses way less energy which is a first the most important thing to consider, for the rest its better to use power efficient devices like LED light....
From my point of view, I would imagine that if there was some long term disruption of the grid and I had to make due with what your solar/battery storage system could provide, I would try to reduce energy use by raising the thermostat, switching to LED lighting, etc. What energy saving measures did you take?
Its a good experiment. I mean now you pretty much know if you were forced during a power outtage, you can continue normal living 4 days, probably indefinitely if you curb your daily usage.
its about time someone put it to a test. the only one that was even willing to talk to me because i wanted to go off grid wanted 40k and that was with out batteries. i laughed and said what good would it do with out batteries if i'm 100% off grid. so i'm about to start a DIY solar system and right now with batteries and all its only going to cost me about 16 to 18k
Did you take any conservation steps? IE loads of dishes by hand rather than in a dishwasher, electronics to a shorter sleep/suspend mode, printers off/unplugged, etc? You can use a little gizmo called a "kilowatt" that you can place between your devices and anything that plugs into a 110outlet and look for those vampire drain items.
My guess the gaps in the solar generation chart are due to the fact that when the battery gets charged enough it cuts off the solar. That's the only thing that I can think of off the top of my head. Every time the battery got to like 95% the solar power dropped off until the battery got down low enough to turn it back on.
The soc(state of charge) % is only an estimation of the actual voltage so when your not fully charging your battery the soc is not re calibrating. So the soc can drop rapidly because its lagging behind the voltage
If I understood you correctly, the powerwall was being drawn down while daytime solar production occurred AND the powerwall was not at peak charge. Must be a Tesla thing. My non Tesla off grid setup lets me run on PV production and charge the batteries to 100% while islanded. Once my production is greater than the load plus the battery charging, then it inhibits the PV.
Interesting! I wonder if you’d have made it if you’d conducted your experiment in June-July? I’ve ordered a 10.7kW Solar system with 3 Powerwalls here in FL. I want to power my Tesla Model S with solar, but also need the emergency backup power in case a hurricane knocks out the grid. Plus we have a lot of annoying “mini” outages here in the summertime - Powerwalls should make that a thing of the past. Thanks for another great video!
thanks for catching the error in the final weekly totals. It turns out the way Tesla reports the data doesn't take into account the time dimensions. So here are the updated numbers, basically divide by 12 and you've got it - twitter.com/BenSullins/status/1329529416855158784
سلام خوبی بود باله من باز می شد ولی اهتگ بگو از ایبی
😁😁😁
باز منشود
If you’ve only got a 10% deficit, surely you could do a quick audit on your usage & hone it, to best use the available solar & battery? I feel like that would make a great & natural extension of this video series & a satisfying challenge for you and your fam ;)
سلام ناکال اومد اومتب اومد پاک کرن
Ben, The reason your solar is getting shut down is because it’s producing more power than the powerwall can accept. Being disconnected from the grid, that power has no place to go so the solar has to be turned off. You could connect your car and adjust the charging amps used to charge it and allow that energy to be captured in the car & powerwall but it’s a delicate balancing act. Also, turn your water heater off at night and back on when the solar is up to conserve usage overnight.
If Tesla allowed a vehicle to powerwall connection, you would be able to use all of the solar power you can generate in a day. Vehicle to grid has many issues but vehicle to powerwall could be seamless.
I was going to say something similar. My powerwalls get full around noon so it would shut off solar then. If off grid my plan would be to set car to add maybe 10 kwh starting at 11:30 am which should keep the solar running and let me capture that otherwise lost energy.
Additional powerwall., will help capture more ?
@@darrellsellers its already expensive and not used all the time
@@darrellsellers Additional Powerwall is not much help. He’s capturing most of what he’s generating from solar. It’s just that he can’t charge to 100% of the Powerwall capacity due to the slow charge rate. If he added a Powerwall, he’d end up with a 66% charge in the 3 powerwalls and out the extra cost. I.E.; not many additional kWh to carry him through the night.
Adding more solar makes the situation worse because higher kw output from solar means the Powerwall has to cut off the solar system sooner as they can’t absorb that much power when they are at a higher % of charge.
Vehicle to P.W. is the way to go for long term power outages. Install one P.W. for short term outages and plug the car into the P.W. for long term situations. With the big car battery as backup users might be able to survive with less panels as the big car battery is there to soak up all the solar the panels can produce. This capability might induce more customers to solar and EVs. Finally, would be interesting if Ben could break out his energy usage, particularly the AC consumption.
Imagine living completely autonomous in terms of energy consuming only solar, this gets me hyped for the future.
I won't hold my breath for that one. Even Florida , with all it's sun, made it illegal to unhook from the grid.
@@aussie2uGA That really sucks, the government controlling our own choices of life preventing us from prosper financially and technologically is really fučked up
@@aussie2uGA florida, the "sunshine state" has been historically pressured by oil companies to ban solar outright, put restrictions, taxes' etc. most other states dont have these ridiculous issues. gotta love the GOP
@@aussie2uGA You can’t cancel your power service in FL but you can flip the main disconnect as Ben did. In my case, I’d still have to pay FPL $9 a month. It’s worth the $9/m to use them as my battery and save the charge/discharge cycles on my powerwalls.
@@daveborinski3021 With the huge increase of rooftop solar the utility company can't continue to be everyone's free battery. They need to pay you much less for your overly abundant afternoon solar power and charge you much more for the scarce and expensive evening power. Making you much more motivated to charge/discharge your Powerwall daily.
10:56 ben-"it's not looking good"
Also ben:*keeps lights on even though the sun is shining through the window
This is what I wanted to say as well. Dude...turn off stuff that doesn't need to be on. Like lights during the day...lol. that would help a lot.
@@coreyverisario6570 it depends. If those are LED fixtures, the amount of power is MINUSCULE: even a pretty beefy 15W LED lamp only pulls 360Wh in an entire day. Also keep on mind that Ben here is working with a camera and lightning is important: he said it's just doing regular stuff and video production is part of that.
This is one of the issues tbh, people need to change their habits to improve all our power usage. Seriously :/
It's hard to tell. The camera will adjust to the light level, so while it may look bright for a kitchen you need more light than minimum. Sometimes when the sun is low it's not quite enough.
He clearly stated he was going to live as he normally would.
those battery packs exceeded my expectations with only 16 panels. you did a really good experiment
This makes me feel GOOD about 31 panels and 3 powerwalls 👍
Very glad to see this video. This test is actually a success and represents great news. The issue here was too high energy demand from your family. My monthly average usage for the year is 1002 kWh in a 3750 ft2 house, while you’re using that in a week. The solution is called conservation. In other words: think about the energy being used, and how to get more efficient with it
House cleaning involves vacuuming which is a huge inductive load. This is the problem with solar air conditioning. The rotating motor and/or heating element needs overwhelm the supply. Great post.
Some people uses heat pumps and geothermal which is very expensive but also very efficient
Try battery powered Dyson, they work great.
Seen from Europe, that 28kWh daily energy use (without EV charging) sounds huge. There must be scope for upping your energy efficiency. Insulation, external shading, better night time air change rates, higher efficiency appliances, LED lighting.
Interesting experiment, once you said you used the air conditioner, I was like oh there's no way it will last 7 days.
Also coffee makers use a surprising amount of energy.
@@timberthewolf733 If you make the coffee and shut it off, it's not that much total energy. This guy has some serious standby consumption that should be addressed, instead his answer would be to throw more solar panels at it. Also if you want to be off-grid, some control over optimizing the air conditioner usage to not run out of power should be done. You definitely would do it if you actually lost grid power. It seems he wasn't really trying to conserve much energy.
@@GuruMN He literally said at the start of the video that they werent going to do much to reduce consumption besides not charging their Teslas, as there wasnt really a need
@@RandomCommentDue I know what he said, but it was well demonstrated that there clearly was a need and his experiment wouldn't have "failed" if he had taken care of the standby consumption issues. ..which he should anyway, even if it wasn't a solar or powerwall system because there is some serious power waste happening while they sleep apart from the air conditioning usage.
Such an inefficient energy source.
I love these off grid power wall videos. Thanks for doing one ben
I have a 8kw system with two PWs, This size will keep me running with three adults in a 2.6k sq/ft home. This includes running air conditioning at peak time of day.
Ben, using 1MWh in a week is pretty extreme!
I run a few servers 24x7 and use about 1MWh per month, and even that is way above average use for where I am in Budapest.
If the grid died for real, you could easily tone down your usage to match and make it work indefinitely.
In Germany 4 persons need 4,3MWH per year!!
I don't/ can believe the numbers here! 🤔
@@urwerling here in italy we use 100kw a week however my powerwall with back up does not work if the grid is down here is not possible apparently.. i have a back up and all it does is power your house only with the battery but the panels will not work so the battery drains in a less than a day
Your ad introduction was so great I had to last till the end :DDDD
I agree with the many comments about 985 kWh in 5 days. That would average out to more than 4000 kWh in a month and that is not including charging an EV. This would be 4 times the US average, something seems way off.
That coffee maker sure takes a lot of energy.
I just finalize my contract with Tesla for the solar roof with18 kWh and 3 power walls. So based off this video I will have way more than enough to go off the grid. Thanks for the info
The 24 sound effects were nice touch 👌🏼
Thank you!
Thanks for this video. I just installed 2 Powerwalls and it took 2 days to charge them with two solar systems. Our original system installed in 2004. It is 18 panels(215 watts each) which is a 3.8kW system. Then in 2019, we added 8 panels(326W each) for a 2.6kW system. Total combined 6.4kW's. The solar company quoted a 12-panel system as the smallest they would install. Like you said, they are in the business of making money. Unfortunately, with the pool solar panels on the roof, only 8 panels could be installed. They agreed to install the 8 panels. It is March 11, 2021, in the San Francisco Bay area, so the system, with the weather right now is working ok. I was trying to find out how long this system would carry the house with an extended power outage. Your video and analysis is very helpful. Thanks so much for doing it.
10:54 sat there stating still getting solar, so light outside but lights on behind him. I imagine the outcome a lot better with ‘some’ power conservation!
I watch a lot of your videos but this one was exceptionally informative. Great experiment, love the approach to it! So the question would be, given this setup, is it worth switching off grid every 4-5 days? Are there any meaningful financial gains to maintaining that type of schedule?
Awesome video.Idea: Start a power wall challenge-see how long you can go on a battery
looked pretty good! In a real emergency you would have been a little more conservative with AC etc.. You should be able to stay off grid for a long, long time.
Ofcourse with vehicle to grid, you could have refueled your Teslas at a supercharger, and add that to your powerwalls.
Holy energy usage! I live in Michigan and don't shy away from using power or air conditioning. Run a dehumidifier 24/7 in the summer as well. Highest month was 566kWh. House is 60% the size of yours. But that's just amazingly high for just a week. You doubled my highest month usage in less than 7 days. I'm going to have to work harder to catch up.
I really enjoyed the test. it was fascinating that you said no cut backs , just going on with life. NOW I want to see IF you cut back and managed systems in the house how long could you go......
It all depends on the 🌞. A cloudy day will not give you enough energy to last a full day and batteries will be completely drained soon after.
We are just starting on our solar journey soon, working with a local installer here in St Louis and we oversized our system by 22%. Our annual consumption is 11,600 kWh which includes our Tesla and our PV system is projected to generate 14,865 kWh/yr with 31 Q Cell 405-watt panels and 31 Enphase IQ8A Inverters. The overage should cover future needs, batteries, and system degradation. We will add battery backup next year, hopefully, the Tesla PW 3 will be out as we want LFP batteries, if not we'll probably go with Enpahse to match their micro-inverters and other equipment being installed. We will add a soft-start device to our 3-ton AC so we should be good to go.
I knew it! Going off grid with power walls are the most convenient and efficient way to do it! Thanks Ben for putting your home to the test. Too bad that Nespresso couldn’t make it through the shot. Zen from Costa Rica.
Those spurious gaps in the solar production are when the Powerwalls become full and the gateway turns off the panels. After the Powerwalls discharge a bit, the gateway turns the panels back on to charge the Powerwalls and supply AC to the home.
5:58 There is more solar being produced than what the house and powerwall combined are using, as powerwall is at 95% it can only take so much current and there is no grid to route extra solar. Also solar does not have the ability to scale the production of electricity, it either goes all in or completely off. That is why solar cuts off and system fall backs to the powerwall.
Edit: Also extra panels wont help for the aforementioned reason, solar you have is more than enough you need more battery backup. Also you can try plugging in your teslas when solar shuts off and check if the solar starts starts again.
Dude, you just need a few more panels. The recommendation is 5kw per powerwall. So I have a 14kw system with 2 powerwalls in Texas. I did a TON of research and number crunching, and I am a master electrician so I may have an advantage when looking at the data pre-puchase. A 'Sense' home energy monitor REALLY helped me figure out our daily and over night usage.
Thank you for this video! We just Leased a new Tesla system and got a system that will cost us close to what our electric bill was running. Now after watching your video, we learned a lot about watch the system can do!!
Thank you!!! We are still making adjustments on our usage........but these are hard choices.
Thank you for your information.
Best,most honest test I’ve seen so far. Great Job👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Good experiment but in a blackout or Apocalypse we’d conserve energy no lattes
Great video - thanks - and important to watch right to the end to get the main message - install sufficient solar right at the start. We have 12 kW on the roof, around 10kWh of battery storage (not Powerwall) and 2 EVs. We have frequent power outages during which we run aircon and pool pump only during the day and use the outdoor BBQ rather than the oven in the evening. With these precautions we can manage indefinitely and comfortably without the grid and still get a useful charge into the EVs.
Ben - I enjoy watching your all your other videos (on Tesla and others) - I have a pretty similar setup - I tested mine over a month when I got my powerwall setup live in early 2018 - we did our own solar panel setup - permits and electrical work - mostly for the same reasons you outlined that no one will support you later for maintenance or changes. We have 30 panels (10kW) for a 7.6 kW inverter so we over provisioned the panels to compensate for cloud cover etc. Some of those gaps you see could be a result of cloud cover or the solar inverter switching off thinking the battery was already full - you may have to play with the inverter settings on that depending on what model you have. We also have the 2 powerwalls like in your setup. We replaced all gas appliances (water heater/home heater) with heat pump (100% electric) to use our excess capacity fully.
Ideally without a generator you would want a bit more solar and double the battery storage to have the ability to survive a couple of non-sunny days during a heavy storm without utility power. Nice setup though
8:20 the gaps in the solar generation are the inverter turning off b/c the powerwalls are too full to accept any energy. If you hit 10 solar referrals you could get a free powerwall so your system could accept more solar energy durning the day. (unless your powerwall wasn't full at the time? then I dunno )
You had lights on during the day. If your ac is running a lot is because your house is not energy efficient enough. You could use a heat pump water heater also that can cool the space while heating the water. That ten percent daily loss could be easily eliminated.
Thanks for the experiment! We currently have an 8.84KW system, but no EVs as yet, and since there is no tiered metering in the Austin area, really no reason to justify a Powerwall- our net metering is a dollar-for-dollar trade. But if we can afford it down the road, we would like to add another 5-6KW and a couple of batteries to offset our future EVs. You might consider the same thing- no one will install two panels for your, but if you add another 10-12 panels to completely offset your EV usage, that would probably get it done. And maybe one more Powerwall.
That’s why you guys have to look into Enphase batteries, with smart switch. They will not trigger your battery during the day and it will be fully charged
Your breakdown at the end was super helpful, looking to buy a house and adding solar and batteries. Was thinking of getting the batteries first and so on but you made a really good point on just getting the whole enchilada at once and really take advantage of those tax credits. Thanks
We have very similar Tesla Powerwall/solar panel system setups and we both live in San Diego. October is not an ideal time to do this type of experiment in SD. Its still very hot because of the Santa Anas so you need tons of energy for AC AND the length of daytime gets dramatically shorter as time goes on. Bad combo. I've only had my system for a year now, but from what I could tell June was probably the best month that balanced both relatively mild weather at the beginning of the month with longer daytime. Having said all of that, even then I think 7 days might be risky but I think you'd make it in June. Great video showing the strengths and limitations of the Powerwalls!
Thanks for sharing I have a powerwall and 26 panels myself. We have lots of outages because of SCE power safety shut offs. Battery comes in handy big time. Was thinking of buying another battery as well. Thanks for info!
These are the kind of experiments we need to do. More data brings more solutions.
This is one of your best videos. Really well done. I especially liked the shot of the coffee maker when the power went out. Really informative video overall! Thank you!
So I know this is from ten months ago, but my question is; How many solar panels does your house have? how many tons is your AC unit? Also how long of a duration do you keep the AC unit on? Also how much kilowatts does it consume when in operation? Have you thought about Dyson fans or any fans for that matter as it wouldn’t have so much of an impact on your Tesla Battery?
AC takes about 2kW if I recall. 5.3kW solar PV system
Ben, this is a Brilliant idea & analysis! 27kw doesn't seem like much! Exactly what I wanted to know... Ha-ha. I really want to build a home from scratch with Tesla Roof, PowerWalls & enough power for 1-2 Tesla's.
I love this, I have solar in Texas, no power wall. 19.4kw system it appears to produce around 80kwh average per day sometimes though I burn thru more power than this per day.
Ben, nice to see some others try this out. Recommend any month other than Oct-March. Find Oct and March are transition months where Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb are all the months my system runs behind production. Can be seen by watching grey bars on weekly charts and when do you take from grid. Planning a backup generator to be able to charge during Oct-March to keep batteries charged if propane cost is below grid. Summer test with full ac raging is pretty cool. Expect months are possible during summer with no sacrifice to energy use. Feels like real energy independence.
RAID SHADOW LEGENDS!!! ROFL, I was not expecting that on this channel 😂
Tool - Hooker with a Penis. Always comes to mind lol 😂
Just saw this pop up in my recommendations. Very timely given the failure of Texas' grid. Crazy that no one was willing to install a few panels
Thanks for the great vid. What I'm reading here is that if hurricane hits and I don't see much sun for about three days, I'm going to lose all the juice. I think I'm going to go with a standby natural gas generator, albeit it'll be a bit loud.
When your battery is getting full and potential solar doesn’t have a good place to go, the solar turns off as a protective measure. It’s by design. It’s in the “data”. You can do stuff like charge car at variable rate, or run clothes drier stratigically to sip the extra production.
Thanks for all the information you provided and for the time making this videos .
Ben, Nice presentation. It seems like you don't know how to do without. If your going off the Grid, then shut down the A.C., and go to a swamp cooler. It would save you ALOT of Kw. Swamp coolers run on 110 v the A.C. runs on 220v. Reduce the lights to only shine when you need them. Kill the water Heater, If your going off the Grid,,, GO OFF THE GRID! Try this again, you will make 10 days at least!!
I enjoy your blogs. Darryl
Here in Poland only rich people have ac. Its cold now since its autumn already so my energy usage grew to 250 kwh for the past two months - just paid the bill. Its just pretty small apartment like 40 meters square. So I use in 8 months what you used in a week it seems.
Merica
Great video. I like how you really tested the system out by not changing your daily habits. When we bought our portable generator, I tested it out doing things as normal, just to see how it handled our daily usage. (Don't want to find this out during a real emergency) As others and you have mentioned, adding additional solar panels should help with recharging the Powerwall's to full capacity everyday. My concern with solar and battery back up system, is how will you manage without sun for a few days, in a power outage. Even though you had sun each day during your test, you showed a weakness in the system, a lot of people don't talk about in their review videos. Might want to invest in a portable generator, as backup power, to your solar system. The last thing you want is to not be prepared, if your solar system fails. Our generator is connected to our Natural Gas line, so no need to refill generator or store fuel. (I still keep 15 gal. of gasoline though)
I know you said that you had the air conditioner running during the test. We in Australia work on C not F so I can only explain it in C. When we run our air conditioning at home, we run it at about 24 C due to the fact that we don’t like to cold and they use less current. I have no idea what temp settings you used but this can also affect your power demands on the power walls.👍🏻
If you can repeat this test in June when day is much longer you may be able to go whole month off grid, great video
Not bad, 4 days, still running AC. If the grid actually goes out and you know it won't come back for a month, you could probably cut your power use down low enough to get by indefinitely. Might not be pleasant if it happens in the summer, but not unlivable.
If you live in San Diego County, check with Mark Snyder Electric. He added 1 KW a couple of years ago to our 2.5 KW system he put in for us 20 years ago. We make 1300 KW extra a year. We got a used Chevy Volt in March 2020 and we still made extra.
man you guys use a lot of kWh in CA. Here in MA, I use 1000 kwh MAX in a given month. 2,400 sq ft colonial built in 1913. 4 Window units cranking AC in the summer months.
Here in southwest Colorado, we get about a month and a half of hot days (90 to 95deg) in June and July then the monsoons kick in through to October when the temp goes back to the 70s. I'll try to add some solar panels to boost the refill capacity. Cheers, S.
During a blackout my best was 67 hours 45 minutes with 1 Powerwall 2 and not running the air con. Grid power came back on and ended it.
You have inspired me to do this experiment myself. This would be very dependent on the time of year here in North Queensland Australia. Currently I'm producing in summer on average 35kWh of solar a day from 6kW panels through a 5kW inverter. We use about 17kWh a day. I just put a timer circuit in my Electric Hot water to be on only from 9AM - 4PM to reduce the depth the Powerwall cycles. Making a big difference. It is interesting to see what happens when it cannot put the energy back into the grid it looks like it cuts the solar of early.
It depends on where you live. If you are closer to the city, the high draw appliances can be problematic, Tesla Power Walls have only a nominal draw of 5000 watts ( 240V x 30 Amps). Generac has a competing product which as a nominal draw of 9000 watts which would be better if you live in a rural setting. Power Walls are the cheapest option
Great experiment. I am sure several of us wondered if this was possible but it was cool that you (and your family) put it through the paces.
Great video man 👍🏾 Especially with what’s going on in Texas rn. Apparently there will be A LOT of future power wall buyers in TX in the upcoming months after this!
This was extremely useful Ben. Thanks a lot brother. Cheers
I wonder how far would you get if you use only essentials and decreased comfort zone. There´s plenty of room to save energy. What about to try real blackout scenario, are you up for it? :) Great vid btw. I would like solar for my house and this helps with my planning.
For a 5.3 kw with 2 powerwalls, it's pretty good.
This was Brilliant! Love the real world! Thank you for producing.
Totally agree with maximise solar on installation, particularly at 51 degrees latitude. You could also consider putting better insulation in your house if the aircon is eating energy in the day. Good video Ben.
Thanks for this real world test. I am currently configuring a solar/powerwall set up for an off the grid container housing project. 30 percent extra solar sounds about right! Thx.
25 days roughly a month with your usage pattern.that is very good.things will only get better from here in terms of solar and battery
Ben, Your weekly totals graph is off by a factor of 10. I think your home use is more likely 98.57 kWh, not 985.
Really cool experiment. This was interesting to watch.
very informative experiment; definitely helps us lay people better understand the flow of grid/generated/stored energy usage and its practical application. thanks for freeing the data. One of my favorite videos that you've done to date
You have at least 4 spotlights on in the kitchen behind you. Are they LED?. It is a bright sunny day. Have you used a clothes dryer? The next morning when @ 7% power wall, you have an outdoor spot light blazing away ... maybe more. I can see only one behind you in the patio area.
You mentioned upsizing your solar system in the beginning, which I agree with 125%, but in NY the PSC/utility rule was (is?) that it can only be built out to 90% of electric power usage, based on the full prior year. (To counter-act this, perhaps maximize home-charging one or more EV’s the year prior to going solar, and perhaps do some home heating with electricity (I have a portable AC that also can be run as a heat-pump heater) rather than the normal furnace, etc., etc.?)
Damn that's a lot of energy used for the week.
Had it been a more conservative run, it could go longer than 7 days
by running your ac at night, that will drain your power wall. I dont use my ac at night because I open up the windows, and things cool down. Anyway without the ac on all night, and adjusting your thermostat at 78, the power wall will not drain, and you can still charge your ev at least a couple times a week.
You use Tableau. Nice! I would love to visualize your data. Certified Desktop Specialist here. Maybe I could reduce the workload visualizing the data. Let me know! Shane
First I thought, you could have made it in summer with more sun, but then you need more cooling, it would have been a "no" also. Great advice, thanks!
Hi, Ben, thank you for all the information you provided. Extremely helpful. I subscribed your channel when I saw your other session. While I found this one week experiement you did is VERY interesting and practical. I'm thinking of getting one system in where I live outside LA where should be similar to where you are. I have a few follow on questions on your week long experiment. (1) You mentioned that you didn't charge your EV during the experiment periord. However, I heard you mentioned that the Tesla Powerwall was fully charged around noon time, which means your house was powered by solar from your 16 panels, not powerwall, during the day. So do you feel there might be any extra power (just estimate, since you don't have "sell back" number as you swithed off from the frid) from your 16 solar panels to charge your EVs during the day? Since you work from home, charging EVs during the day or night makes no difference. (2) Also, because the Powerwall can be charged to full around noon, but its level still seems continue to drop at your evening checking point as each day goes by. Does that mean your house's afternoon power consumption is more than that 16 panels can provide, so it has to dip into the Powerwall for energy before the night starts? I saw the weather were similar during these days, and the powerwall was charged to full around noon everyday, so what make it continue to drop? Is it your afternoon usage gradually increased during those days? Or other reasons? I think if your daytime usage is similar, while the powerwall can be charged to full everyday, then if you can make through the 1st day, you should be able to make through each and every reast of days. I'm a bit not clear here. Thank you again, Ben. Hope hear some further comments from you.
Simple solution.....consume 20-30 less power by buying more energy efficient appliances use ground sources heat pump for cooling which is more energy efficient than air-conditioning since it move heat from your house into the ground which is a massive heat sink.
Normal mode for heat pumps is to move heat from the earth into a house but you need to use it in reverse mode.
Search online for Geothermal heat pump or just Ground Source heat pump.
@BMW R1200GS Adventure there must be something wrong with the design that you looked at since there is a heat exchanger. One side is the house piping and the other side is the piping that goes underground.
So the piping that goes underground is new and thus is designed. The heat pump just pumps the opposite way and takes heat from you house and dumps it into the ground.
The ground has so much thermal mass that it would take a nuclear bomb to raise it substantially.
If be super interested in the actual power usage of the home. I managed to save £70/month, as soon as I installed an Owl electricity monitor & could see the effect each electrical item had on the home.
So I have a 9kw system with 1 powerwall. Hurricane Isiaias came rolling through and i went 3 days with no power from the grid and my system performed wonderfully.
However, there were a few things I did learn. My system is designed so that my central ac shuts down in the event of grid failure. Isiaias struck in midsummer and i thought the lack of ac would be an issue and it really wasn't. I have 2 very large fans. I opened all the windows and turned the fans on and it didn't get too hot. Interestingly enough I had to turn one off when I cooked. I couldn't even boil water with all the air movement. And of course, no baking. It would heat up the house even more. I also have a portable ac in the basement so if the heat ever became unbearable, we did have a nice area to escape to.
The reason why his system would shut off midday is battery will not accept more than a 5kw charge at once. My system averages around 8kw or 9kw noon time during the summer. Normally it would kick any excess power to the grid but in a failure is not able to do so. So it shuts down the panels until that 5kw threshold can be safely met and it switches to the battery. During a grid failure to you want your battery at 100%as long as soon as possible and as long as possible. So I simply changed a few of my daily habits. Normally I'd run my dishwasher at night. Instead, I ran at 11am. I washed clothes and turned on all the lights and vent fans in the house and that solved the problem.
At one point, we did have 2 straight days of cloudy weather and I did get a little nervous. But the sun did eventually come out and we were fine.
At some point, I dowant to add an extra battery just for added security but I can say this system does work! I recommend it.
Anyway to breakdown the energy usage of your home? Your usage seems rather high to not be charging the EVs.
I agree, I have a smaller house but I use less than that amount of electricity in a month and I have an electric geyser and stove as well as a deepfreeze, fridge etc. No EV's however.
Well insulated buildings uses way less energy which is a first the most important thing to consider, for the rest its better to use power efficient devices like LED light....
From my point of view, I would imagine that if there was some long term disruption of the grid and I had to make due with what your solar/battery storage system could provide, I would try to reduce energy use by raising the thermostat, switching to LED lighting, etc. What energy saving measures did you take?
What a GREAT day to FREE THE DATA!🙌💯
For being off the grid. You should be just keeping your fridge and freezer going. All extras should be reduced or stopped.
Its a good experiment. I mean now you pretty much know if you were forced during a power outtage, you can continue normal living 4 days, probably indefinitely if you curb your daily usage.
How do you clean the solar panels! How often do you clean them!
its about time someone put it to a test. the only one that was even willing to talk to me because i wanted to go off grid wanted 40k and that was with out batteries. i laughed and said what good would it do with out batteries if i'm 100% off grid. so i'm about to start a DIY solar system and right now with batteries and all its only going to cost me about 16 to 18k
Did you take any conservation steps? IE loads of dishes by hand rather than in a dishwasher, electronics to a shorter sleep/suspend mode, printers off/unplugged, etc? You can use a little gizmo called a "kilowatt" that you can place between your devices and anything that plugs into a 110outlet and look for those vampire drain items.
My guess the gaps in the solar generation chart are due to the fact that when the battery gets charged enough it cuts off the solar. That's the only thing that I can think of off the top of my head. Every time the battery got to like 95% the solar power dropped off until the battery got down low enough to turn it back on.
Great and realistic info as always. Thanks for making it!
The soc(state of charge) % is only an estimation of the actual voltage so when your not fully charging your battery the soc is not re calibrating. So the soc can drop rapidly because its lagging behind the voltage
If I understood you correctly, the powerwall was being drawn down while daytime solar production occurred AND the powerwall was not at peak charge. Must be a Tesla thing. My non Tesla off grid setup lets me run on PV production and charge the batteries to 100% while islanded. Once my production is greater than the load plus the battery charging, then it inhibits the PV.
Interesting! I wonder if you’d have made it if you’d conducted your experiment in June-July? I’ve ordered a 10.7kW Solar system with 3 Powerwalls here in FL. I want to power my Tesla Model S with solar, but also need the emergency backup power in case a hurricane knocks out the grid. Plus we have a lot of annoying “mini” outages here in the summertime - Powerwalls should make that a thing of the past. Thanks for another great video!