Home solar and powershare

[StainlessVoyager]

I have a beast and got poweshare last year. Now I am planning to get solar since the tax credit is expiring. Can someone explain to me how it works.
The way i understand it is it doesnt work and I should get just the panels and no powerwalls. Please let me know

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[mstatkus]

My understanding was a powerwall has the solar inverter. I don’t think the gateway does this directly. It’s “solar ready” per my electrician, but has similar thoughts and feel like it would need a DC to AC inverter. That’s as much as I know

 

[StainlessVoyager]

I believe you are right. New powerwalls have inverter in them.
We have 3 teslas and charging them is the majority of the pge bill, even with EV plan.

My thinking is to at least offset the charging with solar and charge in the day and in case there is an outage use the cybertruck.

 

[hemiarch]

So the powerwall has several important components of the system aside from the battery.
First of all, it has the mppt controllers the solar panels plug into so so you can harvest the DC current made by the panels(very impressive mppt’s I might add). There are 6 of them per powerwall and together they can accept up to 20kw of solar panels.
Then it has the inverter that lets you make alternating current out of it like you get from the city for your house to use. The inverters are 11kw or so per powerwall and these are additive so if you have 3 powerwalls you’d have the ability to support up to 33kw of draw. This is likely overkill for most homes. I’d say 2 should support just about anything residential you want to do.
The Cybertruck I think can provide around 10kw tops when it’s acting as a PowerShare backup battery but I’m not certain of that. So it’s a backup, but not an optimal one if your use including air conditioning and appliances is greater than 10kw. That said, it’s a much bigger battery. Roughly the size of 10 powerwalls.
The powerwall also has a collar system (I believe the terminology is Tesla backup switch) that goes in front of your panel. This detects when there is a power outage and cuts you off from the mains so you can use your powerwall and/or solar without frying any technicians working on the public utility.
When people have solar without such a system, a power outage means they cannot use the solar because of the backfeed risk.
So you’re SOL in a power outage. Even if you’re making a ton of solar, your house is in the same blackout state as the rest of your neighborhood.
The Cybertruck lacks this ability by itself and that’s why the PowerShare gateway is installed (which it sounds like you have) but that’s not necessary if you have a powerwall.
The complication is that the software for concurrently using the Cybertruck and the truly excellent powerwall 3 is not out yet. Those in the know tell me it should be very soon.
So, in my opinion, your best approach is to install solar with a powerwall 3 (or probably two) and use that system on a time based utility rate plan until that happens and then you can also use the Cybertruck as extra backup once the software is out.
In the meantime, you can still use the charge on solar feature to dump any excess energy into the truck rather than sell it to your utility for an unfavorable rate.
In practical terms this means you only need to buy enough powerwall 3’s to give you the size of inverters and solar input capacity you need for your house plus the universal wall connector running at 48 amps and you also need to make sure that said universal wall connector originates from the same panel being backed up by the powerwall.
Sorry for the long winded explanation, it’s just a lot of information and hard to tell what you have read or not read yet.

Also, just to assure you I’m not just talking out of some orifice other than my mouth, that’s exactly what I did at my house. My money is exactly where my mouth is.
I have a Cybertruck which plugs into a universal wall connector and that comes from a mains panel backed up by two powerwall 3’s. Currently waiting for software update so I can also use the Cybertruck battery in the event of a power failure that exhausts both my powerwalls.

 

[bigbangbadaboom]

for me I had power share installed but later got powerwall3 and more solar, they completely removed the powershare gateway since it's not needed anymore with the CT

 

[Foraker]

for me I had power share installed but later got powerwall3 and more solar, they completely removed the powershare gateway since it's not needed anymore with the CT

Just to be clear, are you also waiting for software update to be able to PowerShare from CT? Or is it somehow working already?

 

[Foraker]

So the powerwall has several important components of the system aside from the battery.
First of all, it has the mppt controllers the solar panels plug into so so you can harvest the DC current made by the panels(very impressive mppt’s I might add). There are 6 of them per powerwall and together they can accept up to 20kw of solar panels.
Then it has the inverter that lets you make alternating current out of it like you get from the city for your house to use. The inverters are 11kw or so per powerwall and these are additive so if you have 3 powerwalls you’d have the ability to support up to 33kw of draw. This is likely overkill for most homes. I’d say 2 should support just about anything residential you want to do.
The Cybertruck I think can provide around 10kw tops when it’s acting as a PowerShare backup battery but I’m not certain of that. So it’s a backup, but not an optimal one if your use including air conditioning and appliances is greater than 10kw. That said, it’s a much bigger battery. Roughly the size of 10 powerwalls.
The powerwall also has a collar system (I believe the terminology is Tesla backup switch) that goes in front of your panel. This detects when there is a power outage and cuts you off from the mains so you can use your powerwall and/or solar without frying any technicians working on the public utility.
When people have solar without such a system, a power outage means they cannot use the solar because of the backfeed risk.
So you’re SOL in a power outage. Even if you’re making a ton of solar, your house is in the same blackout state as the rest of your neighborhood.
The Cybertruck lacks this ability by itself and that’s why the PowerShare gateway is installed (which it sounds like you have) but that’s not necessary if you have a powerwall.
The complication is that the software for concurrently using the Cybertruck and the truly excellent powerwall 3 is not out yet. Those in the know tell me it should be very soon.
So, in my opinion, your best approach is to install solar with a powerwall 3 (or probably two) and use that system on a time based utility rate plan until that happens and then you can also use the Cybertruck as extra backup once the software is out.
In the meantime, you can still use the charge on solar feature to dump any excess energy into the truck rather than sell it to your utility for an unfavorable rate.
In practical terms this means you only need to buy enough powerwall 3’s to give you the size of inverters and solar input capacity you need for your house plus the universal wall connector running at 48 amps and you also need to make sure that said universal wall connector originates from the same panel being backed up by the powerwall.
Sorry for the long winded explanation, it’s just a lot of information and hard to tell what you have read or not read yet.

Also, just to assure you I’m not just talking out of some orifice other than my mouth, that’s exactly what I did at my house. My money is exactly where my mouth is.
I have a Cybertruck which plugs into a universal wall connector and that comes from a mains panel backed up by two powerwall 3’s. Currently waiting for software update so I can also use the Cybertruck battery in the event of a power failure that exhausts both my powerwalls.

I have same setup, but I have 2 PowerWall 2s. I’m expecting software update will enable PowerShare for me, but I do wonder whether it will be limited to PowerWall 3. Thoughts?

 

[JimBuck333]

When it comes Powerwalls and PowerShare, life would be good with one or the other, and having both is definitely way overkill, at least for emergency backup. If you need Powerwalls because Net Metering isn’t available in your area (so that you can save solar power for when the sun isn’t shining or peak times so as not to overpay the utility), then you almost certainly don’t need PowerShare for backup.
Conversely, if you have PowerShare and solar, you definitely don’t need Powerwalls for back up…. (I have PowerShare and solar, and Net Metering.)

 

[hemiarch]

For a new install, I respectfully disagree about the overkill. The functionality offered by a single powerwall far exceeds a conventional solar setup plus the gateway required for PowerShare.
Try and price the gateway (installed) plus 20kw worth of non-tesla solar charge controllers plus an 11kw non-Tesla inverter and see what offers you get. If you can come anywhere near the price of a single installed powerwall, you’re getting a smoking deal.
The panels you can get from anywhere and even add or expand them later. The battery you’re basically getting for free.
The powerwall 3 is by FAR the best deal in the home energy business right now based on my research.
If you already have panels with charge controllers and inverters, that’s a slightly different story but I’d argue the functionality of a powerwall is still worth the extra outlay.
Don't believe me, get some quotes and remember that Tesla are not the only ones who install the powerwall 3 and definitely NOT the most competitively priced for said installation and even the price of the powerwall. They were not in my case , which is why they didn’t sell and install mine.

 

[StainlessVoyager]

For a new install, I respectfully disagree about the overkill. The functionality offered by a single powerwall far exceeds a conventional solar setup plus the gateway required for PowerShare.
Try and price the gateway (installed) plus 20kw worth of non-tesla solar charge controllers plus an 11kw non-Tesla inverter and see what offers you get. If you can come anywhere near the price of a single installed powerwall, you’re getting a smoking deal.
The panels you can get from anywhere and even add or expand them later. The battery you’re basically getting for free.
The powerwall 3 is by FAR the best deal in the home energy business right now based on my research.
If you already have panels with charge controllers and inverters, that’s a slightly different story but I’d argue the functionality of a powerwall is still worth the extra outlay.
Don't believe me, get some quotes and remember that Tesla are not the only ones who install the powerwall 3 and definitely NOT the most competitively priced for said installation and even the price of the powerwall. They were not in my case , which is why they didn’t sell and install mine.

Appreciate the explanation. It makes sense, basically with a powerwal3 powershare gateway is unnecessary. As you said with 2 powerwalls there is enough power to charge CT or any electric car. I agree the whole house can be bached up with a powerwall, currently my AC is not on powershare because the truck cant kick start it. In your opinion i go ahead with solar plus 2 powerwalls, remove the powershare gateway3V and bacically do a normal install. Later with software update tesla will allow the truck to feed power to powerwalls without powershare in an emergency situation.

 

[hemiarch]

Appreciate the explanation. It makes sense, basically with a powerwal3 powershare gateway is unnecessary. As you said with 2 powerwalls there is enough power to charge CT or any electric car. I agree the whole house can be bached up with a powerwall, currently my AC is not on powershare because the truck cant kick start it. In your opinion i go ahead with solar plus 2 powerwalls, remove the powershare gateway3V and bacically do a normal install. Later with software update tesla will allow the truck to feed power to powerwalls without powershare in an emergency situation.

That’s exactly what I would do. 22kw will start any ac I’ve ever heard of.

 

[StainlessVoyager]

Right. Just a matter of cost. I was thinking at first there could be some savings with the current PowerShare gateway. But it doesn’t look like an optimal system.

 

[hemiarch]

Think of the Cybertruck just as huge extra battery. Not a home backup system. A battery you can also use to import energy from any supercharger to your home if need be.

 

[StainlessVoyager]

What did you do with your PowerShare gateway

 

[hemiarch]

Never installed one. My AWD didn’t come with one and when I went looking for one, I realized the powerwall 3 was a much better deal. For me at least. It’s the foundation of a potentially highly expandable solar system over time.
“Doing it right” means laying that foundation first and as much solar panel as you can afford or need and then eventually expanding your arrays. At least, that’s the way I saw it.

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