Tesla
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Have been engaged in a four-way battle the last 2 months since my venerable Powerwall 1 went offline.
In this relationship we have:
- Installation Company - put the original kit in back in 2016
- Inverter Manufacturer - responsible for the bit that connects the solar to the battery
- Tesla - whose responsibility extends only to the PW1 and are being, in a word, fluffybunnies.
- Yours truly.
On June 3, 2025, the battery went offline and TBH I only noticed a week later.
Raised a ticket with the inverter manufacturer as that appeared to be the logical place to start. After a couple of days they came back with the battery reporting a sensor fault, and please call Tesla.
I did that, and their call centre drone said he could see something similar and would pass it onto a senior engineer.
Twenty minutes later, the same drone calls me back to say the Inverter firmware needs updating before they can troubleshoot.
Everyone in IT reading this thread just rolled their eyes, or snorted / chuckled in derision. We know this is just the opening salvo in Operation Pass-The-Buck.
Sure enough, Inverter guys fucked around for a few days before getting the inverter firmware up to spec.
During that time I'd called the Installer to relay all this - they're responsible for the physical deployment of kit and in retrospect I probably should have started there.
Now I'm hitting up the Installer every day or so to try and get a resolution. Tesla are still being the bottleneck.
At this stage the most likely outcome is Tesla honour their warranty and I get a brand new Powerwall 2 and a gateway to go with the existing inverter and panels. At this stage it would have been cheaper to do that a month ago rather than fuck around getting engineers involved, but Capex v Opex I guess.
Once that happens, I'm moving to a wholesale electricity provider and trading on the open market. The bill was back up to ~$1800 per year even before the equipment shit itself. Now it threatens to be over $2k.
Might add some more panels and replace the inverter as well....
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Everyone in IT reading this thread just rolled their eyes, or snorted / chuckled in derision. We know this is just the opening salvo in Operation Pass-The-Buck.
Fuck I hate that shit. And every time somebody in my org complains about it, I feel obliged to point out - "WE do it too". (And it does my head in even then, especially when I see one of my chump colleagues doing it clumsily/obviously)
I'm not even sure it's specific to IT nowadays - it's just the general way organisations work nowadays. The tennis-court-of-responsibility. Fuck people. -
Have been engaged in a four-way battle the last 2 months since my venerable Powerwall 1 went offline.
In this relationship we have:
- Installation Company - put the original kit in back in 2016
- Inverter Manufacturer - responsible for the bit that connects the solar to the battery
- Tesla - whose responsibility extends only to the PW1 and are being, in a word, fluffybunnies.
- Yours truly.
On June 3, 2025, the battery went offline and TBH I only noticed a week later.
Raised a ticket with the inverter manufacturer as that appeared to be the logical place to start. After a couple of days they came back with the battery reporting a sensor fault, and please call Tesla.
I did that, and their call centre drone said he could see something similar and would pass it onto a senior engineer.
Twenty minutes later, the same drone calls me back to say the Inverter firmware needs updating before they can troubleshoot.
Everyone in IT reading this thread just rolled their eyes, or snorted / chuckled in derision. We know this is just the opening salvo in Operation Pass-The-Buck.
Sure enough, Inverter guys fucked around for a few days before getting the inverter firmware up to spec.
During that time I'd called the Installer to relay all this - they're responsible for the physical deployment of kit and in retrospect I probably should have started there.
Now I'm hitting up the Installer every day or so to try and get a resolution. Tesla are still being the bottleneck.
At this stage the most likely outcome is Tesla honour their warranty and I get a brand new Powerwall 2 and a gateway to go with the existing inverter and panels. At this stage it would have been cheaper to do that a month ago rather than fuck around getting engineers involved, but Capex v Opex I guess.
Once that happens, I'm moving to a wholesale electricity provider and trading on the open market. The bill was back up to ~$1800 per year even before the equipment shit itself. Now it threatens to be over $2k.
Might add some more panels and replace the inverter as well....
I got solar-only a couple of years ago. Now with the battery rebate I’ve got folk calling me to add a battery. Might do it. Be good to have another party involved and probably void the warranties.
Also have the standard wholesale provider with Powershop. Was good for a bit til they changed their tiers and now I get minimal benefits from exporting.
Hope to have the system paid off by 2047
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@voodoo if you end up with a battery look at Amber Electric. Wholesale trading can work under the right circumstances.
For $20K I can get a 17kW system with 24kWh of storage under the current rebate scheme.
That's what I paid in 2016 for the current 5kW/6kWh setup.
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Called the installer again today - it appears they're sick of hearing from me
as they said Tesla have the case and are a bee's dick away from giving me a replacement PW2.Once that happens I'm going to change retailers and get some of that sweet wholesale pricing to help make money like I used to in the old days.
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Just had a bloke take me through a quote - $9.2k installed for a 10kW HINEN system. That's about 3yrs of bills for us so pretty good payback.
I do worry though that we might see all the retailers triple the Daily Supply Charge soon...
what is the daily charge (assume that is the same as the charge here to stay connected to the network)
We are having a system installed next week, and think it is a $3.90 daily charge to stay connected and the best rate in NZ to buy back is 0.20c per kw.
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@taniwharugby said in Tesla:
Just had a bloke take me through a quote - $9.2k installed for a 10kW HINEN system. That's about 3yrs of bills for us so pretty good payback.
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I do worry though that we might see all the retailers triple the Daily Supply Charge soon...what is the daily charge (assume that is the same as the charge here to stay connected to the network)
We are having a system installed next week, and think it is a $3.90 daily charge to stay connected and the best rate in NZ to buy back is 0.20c per kw.
I pay $1.42 per day, then $0.29 Off-Peak and $0.62 Peak. Fuckers just ditched Shoulder, so now Peak runs 3-9pm every day.
In theory I guess I could be powering the house and charging my (currently imaginary) battery with my solar until 3pm, then switching to battery at 3pm for the evening until 9pm? Have no idea if my loads match that profile though.
Edit - my current retail plan scores be $0.06 for dispatching my solar into the grid
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@voodoo was a story on TV1 this morning saying we are lagging well behind Aus in solar, but I guess having less sun is 1 factor, cost the other where everything costs more here.
The provider I was with were only offering 0.12c buyback and wanted to charge me $250 to upgrade my metre for the solar, and I think most NZ providers buyback at a flat rate, no on/off peak rates, but as above, 0.20c is the highest rate currently (residential anyway)
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so our system went online about 3pm yesterday...very easy to get a bit obsessive watching the numbers.
Battery only got upto 33% yesterday, but got to 100% by midday today after discharging overnight, which doesnt seem too bad for a warm mildly cloudy winters day.
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@taniwharugby said in Tesla:
...very easy to get a bit obsessive watching the numbers.
You won't need Netflix for a while
I spent every spare second looking at my usage vs generation in the early days, particularly as it was calculating costs in real time!
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@taniwharugby what size system did you get? Which battery / inverter brand?
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Apparently Tesla are going to replace my PW1 (yay) with a PW2 (boo). TBH they should do the current model PW3 which is only different in output capacity.
BUT the installer says the process takes 6-8 weeks. Fucking Tesla
Now I'm told it'll be a PW3 - makes sense as installers stopped using PW2 when stocks ran out.
PW2 - 13.5kWh storage in NMC chemistry - 5kW continuous output with peak of 7kW
PW3 - 13.5kWh storage in LFP chemistry - 11kW continuousThe big challenge: usage! With only 6.5kW of panels running through a 5kW inverter, it will take at least 3 hours to fill.
Also wondering about pulling power the other way e.g. if the house demands 6kW the inverter is probably going to be the bottleneck at 5kW
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Apparently Tesla are going to replace my PW1 (yay) with a PW2 (boo). TBH they should do the current model PW3 which is only different in output capacity.
BUT the installer says the process takes 6-8 weeks. Fucking Tesla
Now I'm told it'll be a PW3 - makes sense as installers stopped using PW2 when stocks ran out.
PW2 - 13.5kWh storage in NMC chemistry - 5kW continuous output with peak of 7kW
PW3 - 13.5kWh storage in LFP chemistry - 11kW continuousThe big challenge: usage! With only 6.5kW of panels running through a 5kW inverter, it will take at least 3 hours to fill.
Also wondering about pulling power the other way e.g. if the house demands 6kW the inverter is probably going to be the bottleneck at 5kW
Will the LFP batteries accept that amount of energy in a short time? I’m pondering different battery and solar setups for my island cabin. TBH it’s really low power use, currently only 150 aH of old lead acid and 400 watts of solar that only produces about 230 watts, but it’s fun to think about the possibilities.
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@NTA I'll have to check for specifics, but 13.8kw GivEnergy stackable Battery, think it is a 3 phase inverter with max output of 11kw and 16 Aiko panels.
On Friday the peak input from the panels was 8.8kwh.
Took about 3 hours to charge yesterday but had some appliances running at same time, hopefully summer will see quicker charge times.
But gee, you notice how quick some appliances, particularly the hot water cylinder drain the power...next stop, heat pump hot water me thinks with a bigger tank too.
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@taniwharugby the knowledge is part of the value IMHO
