Anyone have a Tesla battery with their solar power? DH is thinking about adding this to our system. Our power doesn’t go out very often, and we do have a generator that powers all the essentials…but it’s not an automatic one. Needs to be hooked up and started. Gas powered.
We were recently away during a big storm, and the battery would have at least have powered the house for 24 hours if the power went out. This would have given DH enough time to get a neighbor to deal with the generator…or the power company to restore power.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Costs have really come down. Plus our utility company offers a decent quarterly rebate.
We have solar with a battery backup but the battery’s Generac, not Tesla. At the time (2021?) there were reasons to choose that over Tesla. Not sure what the options are now, and I don’t know if you’ve already researched and settled on Tesla. But if you want some thoughts on solar battery backup in general,
The battery has been great. We tend to have power failures ranging from a few seconds to a few hours, and the transition is seamless. I usually can’t even tell it’s happened unless I check the app.
It’s not enough to power the HVAC, but so far that hasn’t been an issue. I think only the biggest whole house generator could handle that.
It doesn’t charge when the temp gets below a certain point - 5C, I think. Even with the long cold stretch (2-3 weeks) we had recently, the charge didn’t get below 50%. If you’re where it gets cold and stays cold, check the specs on the battery you’re considering.
It doesn’t really “pay for itself” the way solar panels do, but it’s worth it in our case for the convenience and peace of mind.
My husband told me the Tesla one would power our heat (I’m guessing not AC).
Our large generator (when on) is set up to power everything in our house except the stove, washer and dryer. So…we do have hot water, our well pump, outlets on all three floors, lights on all three floors, fridge, freezer.
The battery would seamlessly power everything for a day or so. I think.
My husband thinks this is good for peace of mind…especially if we are away. It’s about $10,000. Instant $500 rebate from Tesla. We would get two batteries for that cost. There is some thing with our utility company…we would get money from them about $800 a year.
Guaranteed for 10 years…then what?
I’d rather get the bathroom redone.
DH will need to take a RMD in 2026, and would like to use that to pay for the battery/installation.
Just last week, our next door neighbor had the Tesla battery system connected to their whole-house solar* for the “Go Off Grid” feature rather than outage protection as we never have outages here (none in the 11 years we’ve been in this house). It seems more like a prepper thing here. We’ll never patronize Tesla.
We have a whole-house Generac with a 500-gallon propane tank in Maine. We’d like to have solar, too, but the woods get in the way.
*Does it only come in white? Seems an eyesore on the side of their house when all the other utility connections in the community match the house color. Perhaps it can be painted.
Our solar installer highly recommended Enphase batteries. We opted not to install a battery backup with our solar system because we rarely lost power and also have net metering, but we have Enphase inverters and its app. That same app can also handle backup battery energy management. You don’t need to have a solar system to install and use Enphase batteries.
10k for two batteries Tesla batteries sounds like an unbelievably low price. We paid 16k for one PW3 installation, prior to 30% tax rebate. I despise all things Tesla, but we went with this battery because a local solar company believes they are the most well integrated and efficient. We do use it for back up generation, but mostly we have it so that if the electricity goes out, our solar panels will still be able to power our house and charge the battery. if you just have Solar and receive electric services from the grid, when the power goes out, the Solar system no longer operates. This is to prevent your solar system from somehow charging back to the grid and injuring guys trying to fix the lines. But if you have back up battery, the solar system can still charge your house and battery.
In the cold of winter, our powerwall3 would not be able to keep our house warm, but it would be able to keep it above freezing and keep the lights and things on.