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I'd love to get one. I'd only do it with solar. Ideally I'd do it with their solar roof tiles when my roof needs replacing. Our electricity rates are crazy here.
Then it depends on your energy usage. You'll probably still pull from the grid during colder winter months but the rest of the year you could probably hardly use the grid.
It's better to put any excess energy into a powerwall than to put it back on the grid since net metering usually doesn't pay you the same amount as what your energy company charges you. Energy here is about 10c kw/h but if I had excess energy from my solar put out on the grid my electric company would only pay me 4c kw/h, yours will vary of course. Also peak solar production doesn't line up with peak energy usage in the early evening so if your electric company charges peak rates during that time the powerwall would help you avoid those charges.
I'm assuming you've done so already but look into energy efficiency improvements as well. LEDs, better water heater tech, insulation, get your ducts sealed, ridge cap on the roof.
I think it's 80% after 10 years, but that doesn't mean you have to stop using it at that point. It'll just hold less of a charge but it'll still keep working for years.
If I lived in Hawaii I'd probably go for it and go solar.
Depends on your energy usage. I don't use a lot of energy so my electric bill is almost always under $100 so it'd take longer for me to get my money back than someone who usually spends $200/month. If you had a Tesla vehicle then you could charge your car using the power generated from your solar panels that's stored in your powerwall and that'd decrease your ROI time.
Solar power in Germany is blowing up, yet they get horrible solar irradiance compared to the US and even Oregon, they're as bad as Alaska
Only 7 panels needed for one powerwall? I guess you get a ton of sun though.
how much is this running him if he doesn't mind sharing?
It's a ~5.5kw system, and there's 18 325w panels. He sent me all the info a while ago. After he signed up for solar I somehow talked him into pre-ordering a Model 3 so I suggested that he add a few more panels, but he's going to leave it as is and if needed they said it wasn't difficult to add panels later.
His electric bill was $200+ and he wasn't trying to go off the grid he just wanted to get it down low enough that Duke Energy didn't charge him the higher energy rate. I think the first x amount of energy is cheaper but once you go over that they charge a higher rate per kwh. We don't have peak time rates down here.
Last edited by #1 STUNNA; Feb 13, 2018 at 01:20 PM.
Pretty cool idea and we wanted to do this, signed the solar paper work last June and planned on adding the wall but our HOA is being a bag of dicks, again and blocking the install. Look forward to seeing updates on it.
It's a ~5.5kw system, and there's 18 325w panels. He sent me all the info a while ago. After he signed up for solar I somehow talked him into pre-ordering a Model 3 so I suggested that he add a few more panels, but he's going to leave it as is and if needed they said it wasn't difficult to add panels later.
His electric bill was $200+ and he wasn't trying to go off the grid he just wanted to get it down low enough that Duke Energy didn't charge him the higher energy rate. I think the first x amount of energy is cheaper but once you go over that they charge a higher rate per kwh. We don't have peak time rates down here.
Update: I was able to see my friends system this week. He mentioned that he actually did decide to add 3 more panels. So the quote above is for 15 panels + powerwall and he now has 18 panels + powerwall. I think the he said the 3 extra panels made it about $15-16k. He may add more panels in a few years, I recommended 6-8 more on the west facing roof (panels are on the south facing roof in the pic above) because west facing is the 2nd best position since it can generate more electricity closer to peak energy usage time. Utilities love west facing panels. South is best for the producer, West is best for the grid. Por que no los dos?
He said his bill was usually $250. I don't think solar + powerwall is cheaper than normal electricity right now. I think he was motivated by me and the when the hurricane came through and the area was without power for about a week. He wouldn't have that issue.* He mentioned that a couple times when talking about deciding on the powerwall, he originally wasn't going to get it but changed his mind after the area wide outage.
*The powerwall will run everything in the house except for his main AC but he has a 2nd smaller AC in his bedroom which it will run. They said if he added a 2nd one they'd provide enough power to run the AC.
I'm jelly, my house is not a good candidate for solar since we have a large amount of tree cover that shades the roof. On the flip side, all that tree cover shades in the summer to lower energy bills and provides a wind barrier in the winter so that, paired with good insulation, makes my summer max electric bill and winter max gas bill is ~$125 each though most are lower than that.
My friend's electric bill from Duke Energy last month was $0. He sends me updates on his solar all the time. Here's a breakdown week by week and totals for the first month. He had his solar turned on at the end of that first week so you can get an idea of how much of a difference the solar has made.
Yellow bar is solar energy generated, grey is energy from/to the grid, and blue is how much his house used
^That data is a little old, being that's is from the last half of March and the first half of April. This is all of April when he was on Solar the whole month
It varies by state, and probably energy company but that's what it is in Florida for Duke Energy
Though his electric bill didn't have a customer charge either. His bill was $4.99, only because his wife signed up for some home electrical insurance program that covers the outlets and wiring in the house. He wants to cancel that but that was the only charge on the bill.
So he's paying $265 / mo (after 18 mos.) to avoid paying $200+ / mo?
thats my biggest issue with it right now. even with all my electricity usage with with my 400 gallon aquarium it would take me 8 years to recapture to break even, at which point id probably have to sink more money into replacement/upgraded components. Id love to have solar with the battery aspect of it for my aquarium alone for if the power were to go out but i just cant justify the cost.
Why would you need to upgrade components? The Powerwall is just like a Tesla vehicle battery. They've been tracking the degradation of those batteries across hundreds of cars and they're holding up really well.
Battery degradation is one of the biggest concerns for electric car owners and potential buyers, but data from Tesla battery packs have been very reassuring so far.
Now the latest data shows less than 10% degradation of the energy capacity after over 160,000 miles on Tesla’s battery packs.
A group of Tesla owners on the Dutch-Belgium Tesla Forum are gathering data from over 350 Tesla vehicles across the world and frequently updating it in a public Google file.
We have previously reported on the data, but they have since added many more vehicles and those vehicles have been driving a lot more – completing more battery cycles.
The data clearly shows that for the first 50,000 miles (100,000 km), most Tesla battery packs will lose about 5% of their capacity, but after the 50,000-mile mark, the capacity levels off and it looks like it could be difficult to make a pack degrade by another 5%.
The trend line currently suggests that the average battery pack could cycle through over 300,000 km (186,000) before coming close to 90% capacity.
Here are the relevant charts from the data gathering effort (full chart on the left and zoomed to 80% on the right):
There are a few outlier battery packs out there and they tried to figure out why by gathering other data, like frequency of DC fast-charging and daily state of charge, but there’s no clear indication that any of those factors have any significant impact based on their data.
He has paid off his solar panels already, and the temp has cooled enough that he's back to generating more energy than he's using. It should stay mostly like that for the next 6 months since it doesn't get that cold down here. He'll have a lot of net metering credits built up during the cooler months. he's also going to upgrade the windows in the house since they're still single-pane which are very common down here. Since getting the system installed he's generated 62% of his own power, that includes the first month in which the system was installed and monitoring but the panels weren't turned on, and it doesn't include the rest of the year so it may rise to 70-75% by the end of the year. He's hoping that with the new windows and more efficient AC he'll get up to 100%.
Just had a company come by for a free high-pressure sales quote for window replacement. I was expecting it to be expensive, but not $20k expensive. It would take a long time to recoup that investment.
so beautiful and works wonderfully
so I suggested that he add a few more panels, but he's going to leave it as is and if needed they said it wasn't difficult to add panels later.
