How A 2nd Tesla Powerwall Battery Unlocks 8c Grid Electricity

[@martythemartian99]

Soon to install a solar system and after watching this, I am so glad I (a) have more roof space for more panels, (b) use less power (no pool, fish tank or spa), and (c) am getting a bigger battery from the start. Hope to be in credit all year round. Hope I get it done right. 😵‍💫

[@scottrouse632]

Great video Finn.

[@SolarQuotes]

thank you, sir

[@kenthomas1613]

Please give us a review of power tariffs in NSW, QLD and VIC and smart meters - what's available?

[@Heshhion]

Just got my solar installed though your website. Has to be one of the worst experiences I've ever had getting work done on my home. No one knew what the other was thinking. I haven't paid yet and won't be until everything is fixed...

[@happychappylife4283]

That's a shame I had a great experience with company recomend I went with Teho. Few months on getting extra batteries from them.

[@karloshagen]

Good summary mate!

[@jjcoolaus]

What retailer is he on with 9 cents? I'm on the SA VPP with energy locals and we pay 17c/LW, however I'm not complaining. Our home uses 20-30kw a day (it's very effecient), I have 13kw of solar on the roof and 2 x 5kw inverters, a tesla powerwall and I haven't had an Electrcity bill in 3 years. I've already reached ROI so the VPP has been very good to us

[@NellyXXiii]

Thinking of getting Powerwall (but without solar) here in Adelaide. Payback or returns doesn't appear to stack-up for smaller families (even assuming if you could save 20-25c/kWh on 13.5kWh). But the idea of using the solar sponge pricing 24/7 and not necessarily worrying about load shifting is enticing. In the video there was a comment on a two circuit limit on a Powerwall - what does this mean? Hoping 1 can handle all our applicances I figure we are well below the 5kW power limit of the Powerwall.

[@renedecandia]

So what happens when you get weeks and weeks of cloud and can’t fill up your batteries? Like most people I’m calling bs on the 5 year payback.

[@asedcopf]

not enough people...

[@ellWayify]

Didn't you watch the video. Even if it's cloudy you can fill the battery from the 8c Kw/h from mains electricity which is very cheap

[@peterryan7340]

Why so few verified reviews for Solar Quotes?

[@MatthewBayard]

Funny that we have 8c rate here in Vic from 12 midnight until 6am. We just load shift our big draws until then. No need for an expensive battery.

[@SolarQuotes]

What tariff and retailer are you with?

[@MatthewBayard]

@@SolarQuotes Ovo with the Ev plan. 10c FIT - 8 c overnight.

[@damonhill33]

Same in QLD with OVO Energy. But we still have 2 Powerwalls to make as much use of the 13.2kW solar we have, since we're not home during the day. And a lot of power outages where we are, so it definitely beats messing around with a generator.

[@MatthewBayard]

@@damonhill33 we've got a Tesla model 3 that was only charge off the solar above 5kw. Since we are single phase and export limited to 5kw. I work from home so can charge the car when it hits that export limit.

[@Kids-gj1yh]

Any good deals or plans for 2 powerwalls in AusGrid area NSW?

[@ElectricCarAustralia]

Thanks for the video Finn 👍🔋🇦🇺

[@SolarQuotes]

No problem 👍

[@annlet8345]

Please help me my house roof very stiff, what company can assess and install the solar system best, please recommend. Many thanks From Ann

[@Nerdificationing]

Do you recommend the Wallbox Commander 2 EV Charger? It's not on your comparison table and I worry whether the tablet screen will not last...

[@Toliman.]

You shouldn't need a screen on the charger. It's also double the price of a standard EVSE charger because it has business/public features installed. The commander(s) are a commercial charger designed to use in a fleet or public charging station, hotel, body corporate or units/villas, office parking, etc., so it can be locked/unlocked and use an NFC or QR code to charge with. If you want a more visual reminder of the status, you can get the hypervolt or Wallbox Pulsar unit which has the RGB light ring to show the status, there's also wifi apps, and so on to setup tariffs and Time of Use rates, as well as Solar-only charge modes.

[@dougiee6589]

Solar sunlight is 100% free you just need to harness it

[@peterlindsay8235]

Im still to be convinced that a house needs grid connection. Can a generator be integrated to top up batteries on a low solar day? I don’t buy the agreement that generators are noisy, in the right environment and location the db should be similar to a pool pump and certainly quieter than a petrol two stroke lawnmower. No connection means no fixed charges that are steadily becoming the larger component on the bill!

[@jamescoppe]

Consider this alternative: We end up consuming about 10x more power locally, and via the grid. This means that economies of scale massively benefit the cost base. I expect the daily grid connection charge goes down in relative terms as we consume more electricity. You're also going to want to be able to sell your excess power back to the grid. This should more than cover the cost of the grid connection.

[@douglasdms777]

I have one powerwall and sometimes it becomes unavailable for hours, then go to stand by without being used for more hours. Can easily miss a couple of days in the month just by that. I cannot figure out to root cause. Installers did not care, I need to get tesla to check if I need an answer but they may not help if something else in the house is sending a signal that makes it shut off. I hope this does not happen to others.

[@SolarQuotes]

who is the installer that sold you it?

[@douglasdms777]

@@SolarQuotes REASolar, they did not try much, not even mentioned what it could be, maybe under or over voltage from panels, or other potential causes. In the end, I think the lazy approach was to redirect to someone else (Tesla in this case, I may need to contact them if this keeps happening). Thanks for this channel and your website btw, helps tremendously!

[@colinmartin9552]

We had similar issues in Melbourne, Nov'21, when our 3rd PW2 was installed on single phase. With some testing I found that I could charge any combination of two batteries by switching one battery off. It was a Grid Impedance issue. Fortunately, in combination with my Installer and Tesla, the problem was fixed. No issues since.

[@michaelpeslow2839]

sorry, very loud background music. why do you need it?

[@mikeesteele]

Mm. So 13k cost, and it halved an "almost $2,000 annual bill". How does he calculate a 5 year payback...??

[@pantoqwerty]

More like $26-30k for the 2 batteries to get 8c electricity. I pay 32c for mine, so on my usage I’d be looking at over 15 years to pay that back assuming I never used grid power. Batteries make sense for availability but not really for usage at current prices and power rates.

[@SolarQuotes]

it halved his *quarterly* bill.

[@evinvestfuture7440]

Quarterly billl... so say its $2k for half the year and $500 during the warmer half. Thats $2.5k per year, or $12.5k over 5... assuming static rates over those 5 years, and assuming it saves him roughly $2.5k per year.

[@DavidAKZ]

amber electric claim to load shift without a battery. @@SolarQuotes

[@markraumer2336]

Yeah nah!

[@jasonrhl]

Im in Adelaide and get average 16-18 kwh a day in winter. I think this dude needs to get things checked and do some review on power use. We had 1 day where the battery didn't fill from 10%. I work from home so its not just battery refilling. We have a pool also. One thing we noticed is that the smart meter to the grid randomly imports power from the grid when it should not. SAPN said its nothing to do with them. I was like :| its your meter.

[@JaseboMonkeyRex]

Do you have live monitoring of the energy consumption and production of the home? If not, definitely get some, it'll clarify these issues... and recommend solar analytics .

[@DavidAKZ]

what size in kWh is the battery and how much did it cost ?

[@jasonrhl]

@@JaseboMonkeyRex I use the solar edge app. Is there something better?

[@jasonrhl]

@@DavidAKZ 10kw solaredge battery with install of other bits and bobs 13k Most days we get a full battery by mid day.

[@toons123]

@6:45 “What’s it done to that massive $2000 odd dollar winter bill?” Our not-so-good-at-maths homeowner “It’s virtually halved it Finn, virtually halved it.” So let me see if I’ve understood this correctly. You’ve installed a second powerwall for a cost of $15,000 so you can reduce your $2000 winter power bill to something a bit over $1000, for a saving of less than $1000 a year. Let’s be generous and assume $1000 a year saving. So it will take 15 years to pay that 2nd powerwall off, provided nothing goes wrong that requires more $$$ in that time. Now let’s take that $15,000 initial investment and put it into a a high income low-risk managed fund, paying approximately 6% income stream annually with an estimated capital growth of 2% p.a. Let’s ignore that uncertain capital growth for now and just bank in the 6% p.a income stream. 6% x $15,000 = $900 per annum. So that same money “invested” into a battery, would result in the same savings but without worrying about anything going wrong before a 15 year pay back period. In that video, our homeowner friend suggests he will have this paid back in 5 years and maybe even less. As I said, he’s a nice enough fellow but not so good at maths. He really should have just said that I got this so I can show off to my mates at the pub and feel good that I think I’m saving the environment.

[@Toliman.]

​@Joveeno It's probably that the 2nd PW2 lets him run the AC/ inflatable spa, during a blackout, which might have been what triggered the purchase. The 2x unit doubles the storage, doubles solar import to 10kw/h and doubles export to 10kw/h, which does mean less FIT credits, but also lower peak/shoulder usage. A VPP plan may help, but it's not knowable. The 2030 plan for a few states, is to push DRED or remote device control, i.e. forcing Solar PV and AC to switch off or into 25%/50%/75% efficiency/load modes. Also, asking devices to power up or charge by the same 25% increments. The "incentives" are still 5-10 years off, but the VPPs are the testing ground for the tech. The benefit is, they don't have to build infrastructure, and they get to have wide-scale control of the state. A lot of assumptions ride on the belief that power pricing is stable, and that the 10am to 2pm variable/negative FIT isn't staying around. The "solar soak" isn't normal, and has unfortunate implications for solar payback too. As for the 15 year payback on $30k of batteries ? or at least $15k ? It's assuming prices will stay stable. The assumptions of 2018, with FIT of 10c/kWh and usage of 30c/kWh, or 3:1 export for import, Now it's 30:1 instead of 3:1 during 80-90c Peak events, where FIT has dropped to 1-4c/kWh in some states, due to excess solar production, and insufficient generation or grid/community storage. A Bill average of $100/month or less, could be triple with little to no understanding across a wide range of consumers. We didn't have this kind of factor in 2022. Battery calculators did not have any category for negative tariff events. Where it costs money to export to the grid. Where Peak ToU rates aren't 2 hours, they're 6 hour blocks once you have seasonal demand rates added in, along with 4c FIT. I'm not sure how a $15k investment term deposit is supposed to pay a power bill that jumps 300% due to FIT credit being decimated or halved. if the $2k /P.A. bill jumps to $5k/P.A., the saving seems to be applicable. Now, once you're hitting $300-400/month electricity usage, you'd hopefully make changes. But a lot of business has to operate in this ToU environment. The other issue is, power pricing isn't returning to 2020's levels. It may not jump 10-30% for a while, but it could rise before the end of the year despite government promises. Especially due to market pricing structures and closing power plants. My 2.5:1 ratio back in 2020, is now 9:1 in NSW, ~4-6:1 if I switch to a 10c or 12c/kWh FIT. This makes the payback period for ToU and the assumed savings to be very skewed on the average 20-30 minute cooking times for 1.5-2kw/h appliances during peak times. Or, everyone eats after 9-10pm when it hits shoulder tariffs. SA has some irregular power blackouts, so it's probably more of a home investment. Plus, the $2k is for the quarter, not the whole winter.

[@xc5103]

​​@@Toliman. Wait... Unless the homeowner has an anti-anti-islanding grid system, you can't even use the solar-sourced nor the grid-sourced stored energy in the batteries because it doesn't allow you to do so during a blackout. That is, the batteries, solar, or the solar and batteries combination only works when the grid is working. Investing in another anti-anti-islanding system is a whole other capital cost

[@Toliman.]

@@xc5103 If you have an off-grid capable system, it can "bootstrap" itself to charge the batteries, so that when the system has enough battery charge, and there's a working grid from the generator, it can provide enough power to start the battery and solar. People have even jerry-rigged this to start from the 12V rail of a Tesla car, so the Car is providing power to boot up the powerwall 2 and charge enough from the grid that it can operate in off-grid mode again. Islanding usually requires a relay that cuts off the grid side in a power outage, and checks that the grid is working again before opening the relay again. Anti-Anti islanding isn't a thing per se, the gateway has analytics to look at the grid frequency/voltage and irregular frequency shifting to determine if there's a spike or load problem before switching to/from the grid operation to smooth out the unstable voltage/frequency. Long-term off-grid or storm watch mode on the PW2 may not work for days at a time unless additional hardware is added, i.e. Gas/petrol generators and a circuit in the switchboard to enable it. By default, residential BESS do not have off-grid capability. Some systems can have the firmware of the PW2 gateway modified to allow off-grid operation. Some PW2 systems can be modified to start without grid power using a generator or ancillary generator to reproduce the grid frequency, enough to start the gateway and start up the solar inverter, hence the 'bootstrap' process, which allows a generator to 'feed' the battery as a tertiary source of power until there's enough stored energy to produce AC power and charge from the Solar Export. The Enphase systems can generate this bootstrap charge from the micro-inverters, but it also requires reserve power to hit a certain amount of battery or solar before it will start the offline micro-grid or island. While the Powerwall 2 is not designed to operate with a generator as the bootstrap "grid", if there is an operating grid and solar power is behind the circuit isolation relay / gateway, the PW2 can charge and discharge on separate batteries to maintain the micro-grid.

[@karl7796]

Batteries have a limited life and gradually loose capacity over time, so you have to work out is the initial cost worth it considering you will need to replace it with new pack at some time. I am not sure it makes good financial sense. You could put that many into a term deposit and at least get 4% interest instead. It is not really money you are saving its it having the capacity to run your home when the grid fails and if you do not get enough sun you need to recharge back through the grid. Perhaps a better idea is get a diesel backup generator and run it during power outages.

[@jasonrhl]

So he should do the same thing with a diesel generator. he needs to cost a generator big enough to run his house, then he needs to maintain it and then hope the neighbors don't crack the ... when it starts up randomly and then decide when it will be replaced. Be interesting to know how many batteries at the telsa battery plant up north have the degradation you speak of. He will also be saving a lot of money because he is storing unused free solar power and using it later. We went from $1600 average to less than $100 a bill. That seems like a saving. Every year I think that works out to be about $6000 saving? Im bad at maths

[@karl7796]

@@jasonrhl What is your daily KWh usage per day?

[@jasonrhl]

@@karl7796 between 15 and 22 per day. Overnight between 6-8

[@GeneLake001]

9 cents……who’s doing that deal?

[@SolarQuotes]

IO Energy in SA: www.ioenergy.com.au/plans and Synergy Midday Saver in WA

[@GeneLake001]

@@SolarQuotes makes the 33cent offer from our friends at AGL a little ‘obsolete’. Thanks for the info and as always a great video presentation

[@colinmartin9552]

@@GeneLake001 Just swapped from AGL in Melbourne because they upped our rates 71%. Went Tango @ 17c Off-Peak and 28c Peak ToU. Increase of 16%

[@MadHeadzOz]

I've always considered solar plus battery etc an equivalent to pre-paid electricity. Anyway system cost, maintenance and lifespan are all crucial factors to accurately calculate the equation. Theoretical replacement cost also needs to be considered along with disposal of broken/redundant parts/systems. It is pointless and misleading to focus on aspects only. Such as charges at off peak times for costings. When I do my budgets I calculate to the highest likely costs first. That way if there is a surprise it is likely ro be a pleasant one. If you can't preeent a realistic worse case scenario as beneficial, it probably isn't. Ie polish a turd it is still a turd. All this before you bring into account that the electricity board, bureaucrats, have ultimate control of YOUR electricity set up. As mandated in Aus the inverters have a sim allowing external communication and control of the system. Your system that you paid for. What does this mean? It means that the property owner has directly paid for electricity infrastructure that is controlled by the exact same entities responsible for the current situation. The current situation which is extortionate overcharging and allegedly environmentally detrimental. The true costs of "sustainable " energy are not calculated or portrayed accurately. People are being mislead or to be politically correct, the marketing of sustainable energy isn't truly transparent. The marketing of "sustainables" is aimed at providing positive feelings while offloading costs and accountability to individuals collectively. Feel good for trying to make positive changes. Experience the cognitive dissonance when there is no discernible improvement. Being more heavily invested in the marketing personally the tendency is to defend it more vigorously and double down continuously. You're now contributing to the marketing infrastructure of your own exploitation. Congratulations. We've yet to mentioned the literal slavery relevant to 90% of the cobalt supply chain. Cobalt being in every lithium battery. Working on a "sustainable future for everybody." Calculate your equations thoroughly. Know the true costs and not only the true financial costs. How does your conscience reconcile real people suffering today for the hope of theoretical people not suffering tomorrow?

[@adamlawrence9055]

People of Australia, do the research on these Tesla powerwall batteries. There overpriced you are paying for the NAME AND NOT PERFORMANCE. There are much better options available. Ant the Tesla's batteries are prone to causing fires. 😂 It was in the news last year😮

[@adamlawrence9055]

Ive worked in solar for over 3 years and this is a lie. Dont be fooled by the tesla name. For the price of a tesla battery you can do much better...a lot better 😂

[@wzk921109]

Don’t buy a Tesla. A lot cheaper using other brands and battery hasn’t updated to LFP yet.

[@SolarQuotes]

If price is your only criteria - then, yes, don't buy a Tesla Powerwall.