We're going solar!

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"Cookie"
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#3344419 18-Feb-2025 22:44

Pretty graphs already.

Little bit of yellow for when the panels were enabled for 3 minutes.

Green: looks like the battery had some charge, the installer said it is set to deplete to 20%, but that can be changed.

Grey: keeping the lines company in business I guess.

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richms

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#3344505 19-Feb-2025 14:20

The other option is to check out ideal or ja russells for replacement doors, as I know they are available for some makes of boards for not too much (The whole lot is absurdly overpriced for what they are) and then swap them back if you have someone coming over to work on it.

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#3344507 19-Feb-2025 14:23

Just make sure you swap the doors back as you evacuate during a fire... 🤦

k1w1k1d

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#3344529 19-Feb-2025 15:34

Neighbours' 1950's red brick house is for sale, so went to have a look at the open day.

They have a Harrison solar setup with a Tesla Powerwall in the laundry. In the hallway they have a monitor panel and an old style black(asbestos?) fuse board. There isn't a cover over the fuses and from memory there aren't any warning signs.

SomeoneSomewhere

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#3344633 19-Feb-2025 21:05

It's only the first meterbox, and any board that has the solar directly connected to it, that needs the labelling IIRC. It's entirely possible that board isn't the meterboard.

kiwifidget

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#3345585 22-Feb-2025 17:20

The inspector came Friday afternoon, gave us the thumbs up, and turned it all on.

Still waiting on import/export meter, which is scheduled for Tuesday.

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kiwifidget

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#3345588 22-Feb-2025 18:00

SomeoneSomewhere:

It's only the first meterbox, and any board that has the solar directly connected to it, that needs the labelling IIRC. It's entirely possible that board isn't the meterboard.

Quite possibly. We have a 3rd switchboard in the detached shed, but no nasty labels all over it.

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kiwifidget

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#3345856 23-Feb-2025 10:34

The Tesla PowerWall3 battery does not get us through the night.

At a time when daytime is longer than nightime, it does not bode well for winter.

A second battery is pretty much a dead cert now.

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SomeoneSomewhere

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#3345891 23-Feb-2025 11:47

What's running overnight? I assume hot water, heating etc. is all time-shifted?

Fewer servers? :P

kiwifidget

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#3345895 23-Feb-2025 12:16

SomeoneSomewhere:

What's running overnight? I assume hot water, heating etc. is all time-shifted?

Fewer servers? :P

We really dont turn anything off-off at night.

I checked the app around midnight and the house was drawing about 1.0kWh.

I would much rather the system accommodates us than the other way around.

Of course, small changes can be tolerated.

EDIT: ironically, our phones' batteries are depleting faster than before, what with checking the Powerwall app every 5 minutes!

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kiwifidget

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#3348942 1-Mar-2025 11:36

We've been exporting power for about a week now. Since Friday (Feb 25) midday-ish.

I've discovered the Powerwall Companion app, which says it's for Powerwall2, but seems to work just fine on Powerwall3 as well.

I much prefer seeing the "stats" on my desktop than my phone or ipad.

We still cant get through the night on the battery, but we are using our Hour of Free Power from 6-7am just because we can.

The hardest adjustment so far is NOT putting the dishwasher on before bedtime, it just seems wrong in the middle of the day 🤪

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kiwifidget

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#3350267 5-Mar-2025 08:09

Yesterday was interesting.

Never saw the sky let alone the sun. Total cloud cover all day.

Solar production dropped by over 50%, were averaging 70-80kWh, yesterday 31kWh.

Nice to know it does still produce in those conditions.

Battery had been charging to 100% every day, yesterday it only got to 81%.

Power exporting has been 30-45kWh, but 0 yesterday.

Today should be an improvement.

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MattD

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#3356101 21-Mar-2025 18:18

Jase2985:

so I'm guessing only one phase will be on backup power based on what you have said.

We recently renovated home, and they put majority of loads on one phase, but some loads were on a second phase. With 2 years of data history of usage and some protection from the gateway and limits, we had all put to single phase. That’s 14kW and we never exceed 5-6kW at any given time.

Now have whole house backup from PW3.

MattD

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#3356117 21-Mar-2025 18:35

sibel:

@kiwifidget - may I ask, why Tesla? There are plenty of superb hybrid inverters and battery combinations which would do just as good a job (if not better!)

Our decision process. We started with a modest 5.8kW array with a 5kW Fronius Gen24+ hybrid inverter and smart meter with option to add the 13.5kw BYD battery system later. However when we came to install battery, we considered additional panels. This would have required an upgrade to inverter, also the BYD battery box was limited to 5kW supply. Biggest driver of decision was that the cutover of backup could be more than 90sec.. typically 30-45secs with Fronius/BYD combo.. and we have instantaneous with Tesla. I was working from home and on work calls/teams, and cut over with grid failure simulation. No lights flickered, not devices stopped, and continued working for next 4 hours until i reset it.

We have had 18months of exceptional usage from Fronius and it is excellent solution.. just not for our use case due to backup, and power from battery. I just wish the PW3 was available when we planned our system at the beginning.

Going with Powerwall 3, we removed the Fronius inverter, added 3.2 kW panels. now have a 10kW inverter which can supply 11kW power. Whole house backup. Also better algorithms to understand usage and best arbitrage the buy/sell rates and whether to charge the PW battery in off peak if next day is poor generation. I despise EM but the product and tech is superior to many others in market right now.

For those considering options, consider what are your goals for having a battery energy system. Yes the cost of the PW3 is premium, but there are many features in this that could not achieve with other hybrid offerings with multiple vendors. Now in the process for the system to learn our behaviour and patterns. We get a lot of solar in Chch. However this week was interesting to see that when it recognised that the next day was going to be dark and gloomy.. it charged the battery in evening in off peak which carried us through the day and into the evening. As a test we forced the system into self powered mode rather than Timed Based Control… and ran from Friday until Monday purely from solar and battery.

Still early days as 1 month of usage but happy with results

MattD

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#3356120 21-Mar-2025 19:03

kiwifidget:

I've discovered the Powerwall Companion app, which says it's for Powerwall2, but seems to work just fine on Powerwall3 as well.

is that just Windows and Android. Nothing for Mac or iOS?

Mod Edit - 'Funny' name corrected

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