Cybertruck PowerShare Install & Testing - Wish I Had Known!

[bkellisimo]

PowerShare install #5 here in west Michigan! Here's my install, provisioning, and testing timeline.

Out of Pocket Cost: $4,000
Wait time to install: 2 months
Electric outage during install: 5 hours
Wait time until PowerShare active: 4 days after install
Simulated Outage Service Interruption: 5 seconds (both start & end)
Runtime Estimate during outage: 24 hours
Flickering Lights During PowerShare startup: 5 seconds



After taking delivery of my Cybertruck AWD on June 14, it took exactly 2 months until the powershare gateway was installed by the only certified installer in Michigan, The Green Panel.

While I really wanted a powerwall and solar, I was told at this time powershare does not work in conjunction with solar and powerwall, at least here in Michigan.

Installation team was professional, timely, and brought a huge crew. They had a total of six representatives at the job site throughout the duration.

Fortunately, my main service panel and power meter are right next to each other on opposite sides of the wall and the garage, and the cyber truck also happens to charge in the same garage stall. Therefore, very little copper wiring was required to be run.

I had purchased a Tesla wall connector with referral points earlier in the year, thinking it would cut down the cost of install, but realized when it was too late to return to the Tesla shop that the universal wall connector with the comms wire was required, so we will use the extra wall connector for our other Tesla.

The installers will ask for your home Wi-Fi password to complete registration, however, I was able to type in our password myself, so we don’t have to share it.

View of household while charging two Teslas

‘Discover PowerShare’ icon available 4 days after install:

PowerShare button in controls:

Simulated Outage Test

Purple = Reverse direction power

Started test with 285 miles.
Pulling 2.6kW during test:

Lights flickered for 5 seconds while everything started from cold, all breakers to house on, including starting up large AC.

After stabilizing for a few minutes, I turned the grid power breaker back on. Surprised to see the built in 5 minute hold before switching back to grid. I assume to ensure clean & consistent power from the grid after what would have been a real outage.

Took all 5 minutes!

Hope this helps you! Wish I had known many of these details even a few days ago during the waiting. Happy PowerSharing!

Sponsored

 

[mongo]

PowerShare install #5 here in west Michigan! Here's my install, provisioning, and testing timeline.

Out of Pocket Cost: $4,000
Wait time to install: 2 months
Electric outage during install: 5 hours
Wait time until PowerShare active: 4 days after install
Simulated Outage Service Interruption: 5 seconds (both start & end)
Runtime Estimate during outage: 24 hours
Flickering Lights During PowerShare startup: 5 seconds

Coolness! What was the process flow with hiring Green Panel? Qmerit is setting up a quote with another contractor here in Michigan, but I was talking with Green previously about Powerwall + Solar.

 

[bkellisimo]

I was lucky enough to get in queue directly with the contractor before Tesla outsourced to Qmerit. Sounds like people nationwide are having issues, including long unexpected wait times with no communication. Good thing we’re all used to that!

 

[CyberT1]

PowerShare install #5 here in west Michigan! Here's my install, provisioning, and testing timeline.

Out of Pocket Cost: $4,000
Wait time to install: 2 months
Electric outage during install: 5 hours
Wait time until PowerShare active: 4 days after install
Simulated Outage Service Interruption: 5 seconds (both start & end)
Runtime Estimate during outage: 24 hours
Flickering Lights During PowerShare startup: 5 seconds



After taking delivery of my Cybertruck AWD on June 14, it took exactly 2 months until the powershare gateway was installed by the only certified installer in Michigan, The Green Panel.

While I really wanted a powerwall and solar, I was told at this time powershare does not work in conjunction with solar and powerwall, at least here in Michigan.

Installation team was professional, timely, and brought a huge crew. They had a total of six representatives at the job site throughout the duration.

Fortunately, my main service panel and power meter are right next to each other on opposite sides of the wall and the garage, and the cyber truck also happens to charge in the same garage stall. Therefore, very little copper wiring was required to be run.

I had purchased a Tesla wall connector with referral points earlier in the year, thinking it would cut down the cost of install, but realized when it was too late to return to the Tesla shop that the universal wall connector with the comms wire was required, so we will use the extra wall connector for our other Tesla.

The installers will ask for your home Wi-Fi password to complete registration, however, I was able to type in our password myself, so we don’t have to share it.

View of household while charging two Teslas

‘Discover PowerShare’ icon available 4 days after install:

PowerShare button in controls:

Simulated Outage Test

Purple = Reverse direction power

Started test with 285 miles.
Pulling 2.6kW during test:

Lights flickered for 5 seconds while everything started from cold, all breakers to house on, including starting up large AC.

After stabilizing for a few minutes, I turned the grid power breaker back on. Surprised to see the built in 5 minute hold before switching back to grid. I assume to ensure clean & consistent power from the grid after what would have been a real outage.

Took all 5 minutes!

Hope this helps you! Wish I had known many of these details even a few days ago during the waiting. Happy PowerSharing!

I think you answered my question I have Tesla Solar and 3 Tesla peer Walls as well as a universal connector but unable to get Pwer Share. I was told by Tesla not everyone has got it yet but from yours information it might not be ready for us who have everything Tesla.

 

[jonesw67]

Great information. Thankyou for this. I am just waiting for the equipment to arrive to my installer now as everything is planned for Friday.

 

[FL370]

Interesting. There were two guys here during our three-hour installation. One pretty much did all the work while the other guy watched and made labels for the new panel. Not hard at all if you know what you are doing. I was that annoying homeowner who watched the entire thing.

 

[AO-Pete]

Interesting, thanks for all the screenshots @bkellisimo.

We had our 'install' done on Thursday, so anxiously waiting for the "discover Powershare" to appear, but not super hopeful; the installer (a subcontractor via QMerit) were not super-familiar with the set-up (we have a PW & Gen 2 gateway, not something covered in their 1hr training), but it's not their fault, it's pretty clear the training provided is fairly generic.

They'd arrived assuming the Universal Wall Charger (UWC) breaker needed to be moved to the Gateway, which is the same as shown upthread. But the Qmerit support they called said it didn't need to be moved (currently in a non-PW-backed up breaker box). So in the end, nothing was changed, aside from them installing and provisioning the UWC. The project isn't complete yet, pending a power-out test (has to be scheduled with Oncor), so hopefully between now and then, Powershare will show up in the app.

 

[bkellisimo]

Thanks! Interesting why your installer thought a downstream non-PW backed sub-panel would be able to (safely) backfeed to the gateway. The UWC breaker definitely needs to be in the gateway for PowerShare with the comms wire attached and handshake tested successful. My installers were on the phone with Tesla support for an hour trying to get it to communicate with the gateway, which was after the utility turned the meter back on.

 

[mongo]

Thanks! Interesting why your installer thought a downstream non-PW backed sub-panel would be able to (safely) backfeed to the gateway. The UWC breaker definitely needs to be in the gateway for PowerShare with the comms wire attached and handshake tested successful. My installers were on the phone with Tesla support for an hour trying to get it to communicate with the gateway, which was after the utility turned the meter back on.

With Powerwall, there is no Powershare UWC comms line to the Gateway and the 240V EVSE (need not be Tesla) can be anywhere on the backed up side of the Gateway switch.

Interesting, thanks for all the screenshots @bkellisimo.

We had our 'install' done on Thursday, so anxiously waiting for the "discover Powershare" to appear, but not super hopeful; the installer (a subcontractor of a subcontractor via QMerit). I used airquotes because they were not familiar with the set-up (we have a PW & Gen 2 gateway, not something covered in their 1hr training).

They'd arrived assuming the Universal Wall Charger (UWC) breaker needed to be moved to the Gateway, which is the same as shown upthread. But the Qmerit support they called said it didn't need to be moved (currently in a non-PW-backed up breaker box). So in the end, nothing was changed, aside from them installing and provisioning the UWC. I refused to sign-off on the project without a power-out test (has to be scheduled with Oncor), so hopefully between now and then, Powershare will show up in the app.

Powershare doesn't work with Powerwalls currently. Software is still in progress.
Wall connector will need relocated.

 

[AO-Pete]

Thanks @mongo . To further/better explain things (and maybe you can confirm), these are the 3 breakers (Gateway v2 is on the outside wall behind):

1 contains the breakers for the PW & Solar.
2 contains all the circuits not backed up by PW (including the Universal Charger)
3 contains the backed-up circuits

1 & 2 are fed from the Gateway (we only figured that out when we took the panels off. 3, as the warning label says, is fed from Grid & Solar.

So with all of this in mind, and when PS is enabled for PW installs, would this work? In case it matters/helps, this is the single breaker in the GW:

 

[mongo]

Thanks @mongo . To further/better explain things (and maybe you can confirm), these are the 3 breakers (Gateway v2 is on the outside wall behind):

1 contains the breakers for the PW & Solar.
2 contains all the circuits not backed up by PW (including the Universal Charger)
3 contains the backed-up circuits

1 & 2 are fed from the Gateway (we only figured that out when we took the panels off. 2, as the warning label says, is fed from Grid & Solar.

So with all of this in mind, and when PS is enabled for PW installs, would this work? In case it matters/helps, this is the single breaker in the GW:

Interesting,
Was Powerwall added after the house was built, or is it original?

I'm guessing they feed panel (2) from the extra grid side terminals and the Solar/Powerwall panel (1) along with Panel (3) are fed from the backup side of the Gateway (it has dual lugs).
To use Powershare, the wall connector needs to be moved to panel 1 or 3 (after proper load calculation for generation and charging use cases)

 

[AO-Pete]

@mongo Panel 3 was my assumption too, which is why they showed up thinking they'd need to move the UWC break from (2) to (3). Solar & PW was added just after we built, I think at the time we couldn't apply the incentives to new construction, so had to wait for occupation, so was installed mid 2018.

Since we're waiting on Tesla to release the Powershare s/w for PW-equipped homes, I guess the grid-outage test will be pointless, all we'll see is PW kicking in for panel 3, as usual. It took literally an hour of back and forth for me to convince the contractors that 3 was the backed up panel, they were convinced it was panel 2, since that's fed from the GW.

 

[mongo]

@mongo Panel 3 was my assumption too, which is why they showed up thinking they'd need to move the UWC break from (2) to (3). Solar & PW was added just after we built, I think at the time we couldn't apply the incentives to new construction, so had to wait for occupation, so was installed mid 2018.

Since we're waiting on Tesla to release the Powershare s/w for PW-equipped homes, I guess the grid-outage test will be pointless, all we'll see is PW kicking in for panel 3, as usual. It took literally an hour of back and forth for me to convince the contractors that 3 was the backed up panel, they were convinced it was panel 2, since that's fed from the GW.

Was the house originally one 200A panel?
Yeah, need Wall connector on 3 (or 1) plus the upcoming software.
No way to run Powershare (without PW) on a GW2.

 

[AO-Pete]

Was the house originally one 200A panel?
Yeah, need Wall connector on 3 (or 1) plus the upcoming software.
No way to run Powershare (without PW) on a GW2.

No, 2 x 200Amp panels. Photo below from construction.

 

[mongo]

No, 2 x 200Amp panels. Photo below from construction.

400A (320CL) service?
Maybe there was a typo earlier.
Do the left panel (solar/PW) and right panel (backed up) both feed from the Gateway and the middle panel has the non-backed up loads?
Or is it 200A service and everything runs through the Gateway main breaker?

Sponsored