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Tesla - House Solar & Powerwall

TheHeez

TheHeez

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Curious about other’s experience with a Tesla solar system and/or Powerwall. How’s the performance? Have any issues? Was it worth it?

Tesla seems to be least expensive in our area and the build time is best. Thinking about adding an 8kw solar system and two Powerwalls to the new house. Would allow us to be largely “off grid” and still run everything including AC at night. We had minimal rolling blackouts last year and I don’t want to be unprepared any longer.
 
We have talked about this a lot lately, and I’m curious of any THP’ers experiences for sure
 
Even though I am NOT in a position to do this right now, I have watched a NUMBER of YouTube videos on it, mostly because I find it so fascinating.
 
Solar power requires sunlight though.....something we don't seem to see a lot of some months where we live :LOL:

Definitely an interesting subject but would require a lot of research for us to go down that route as it currently stands
 
Was looking at this last week. Would love to do this down the road. Will be curious to hear about other's experiences here too.
 
My house is not in a good orientation for collecting solar power. We would have to move to do this, but I am interested in following along.
 
My house is positioned very well for solar, most of the 8kw array would be facing south and the rest facing west. Being is central CA, we have a lot of sun, especially in the afternoon hours (we get some ocean effect fog in the AM). Our house is "solar ready" so there is conduit from the attic to the panel already installed.

I had Tesla come out and do a site assessment because there are not satellite pictures of our house yet. Have been pretty impressed with their process so far, most of it is online. Curious what design they come up with and if the $ matches what their site estimate says.
 
Buddy of mine got one installed because they have had blackouts multiple times the last few years. I have been lucky enough not to get hit with them, but not sure when that might run out.
 
I think it is interesting but in Massachusetts the payback can be long. We generally don't have the power brown out issues. Backup power I would generally want would be for blizzards/summer storms an solar isn't likely the best options for that.
 
I would love to do this. But every time I look I get sticker shock and my power company seems to make it impractical with all the "grid" fees. When it's time to replace my pool pump, I am considering a solar option for that.
 
TheDoctor said:
Solar power requires sunlight though.....something we don't seem to see a lot of some months where we live :LOL:
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People we know in Netherlands, slightly further north and east than you, are putting in solar power like it's going out of style. They're seeing plenty of return on their systems. One of my best friends is going to put solar in for his cabin out in the sticks, in the northern part of Michigan's lower peninsula. (No utility power out there at all.) One of the delays is probably my fault. I keep arguing he needs to put in a below-ground cellar for the batteries so he doesn't have to expend a bunch of battery budget on keeping them from freezing. (It can get to less than -20°F [-29°C] for days at a time up there.)

I'd consider it here, except, our home having a hip roof, we don't have a lot of exposure for putting the panels up there.
 
I have looked at it and possibly in our next home we will look at it but the cost outweighs the benefit in our current home.
 
When we were RVing, alot of out time was spent in the back country areas. We utilized 1200 watts of solar panels, which gave us all the 110 ac power we needed. We also had a bank of batteries totaling 800 watt hours the panels kept charged, which actually supplied our needed 110 ac voltage through a couple of controllers.

That was several years ago. I'm sure technology has advanced quite a bit since then. House solar panel systems around here are becoming quite popular.

Our youngest Daughter has a large home with a lot of roof square footage available. They are looking into installing solar panels to help with their monthly $600-$700 summer electric bills.
 
I just put my house location in, 80,000 for the system. I would Never ever even get close to break even on that cost.
 
Tee1Up said:
I just put my house location in, 80,000 for the system. I would Never ever even get close to break even on that cost.
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Dang. Big house? Big system? Location? Did you quote a solar roof or solar panels? Did you buy 8 Powerwalls?

I'm curious what made it get there. My system is overdone and less than half that.
 
2400 square feet, Georgia, solar panels with powerwall. Solar roof was 123,000 with powerwall.
 
Tee1Up said:
2400 square feet, Georgia, solar panels with powerwall. Solar roof was 123,000 with powerwall.
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That’s wild. My house is about 2300 square feet, but new so pretty efficient. An 8kw system is more than enough and we are going for two Powerwalls. Before tax credit, estimated cost is $36k. I guess it pays to live in California? I do live in a place that has a modest climate, but it’s supposed to be about 100 degrees today.
 
We were going to put it in when we built our house in 2017. At the time it was just over $45k and with incentives, it actually was very promising. Then, Tesla put manufactuing on hold so we were unable to go that route. Now, I’ve done the calculator and The price has increased to $58k after incentives. With as efficient our house is and with our bills being less than $120/month on average for electricity for over 4,000 sq feet of conditioned space, the finances don’t make sense.
 
TheHeez said:
That’s wild. My house is about 2300 square feet, but new so pretty efficient. An 8kw system is more than enough and we are going for two Powerwalls. Before tax credit, estimated cost is $36k. I guess it pays to live in California? I do live in a place that has a modest climate, but it’s supposed to be about 100 degrees today.
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I put my information back in today and it is only 42,000. Still doesn’t make economical sense for me.
 
Tee1Up said:
I put my information back in today and it is only 42,000. Still doesn’t make economical sense for me.
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I’m going to finance the thing. 10 years, 1% interest and payments should be about $40 more than our average electric bill. Seems like a good investment for the house.

I also like the idea of being largely energy independent and having the backup in emergencies. Last year’s fires, combined with heat waves and rolling blackouts put this higher on the list of things to have.

Clearly I’ve talked myself into it. Now does anyone have any real world experience?!?!
 
Living in the Adirondacks we get limited amounts of sun, that's not to say we don't get sunny days, we do but in the winter we can go weeks with just clouds and snow. Then there is the tree problem, There are way to many big tall trees that cast shadows on the house, and then you can only remove a certain percentage of them or the APA comes a calling. So I try to keep an eye on my bill and try to stay with the best "green" supplier I can find and a whole house generator for when we loose power 3 or 4 times a year.
 
The cost/benefit doesn’t pencil out for me and I have a house in SoCal that SDG&E cuts power to whenever the wind blows over 30 mph. A $500 generator takes care of the fridge, freezers and a few minor things.
 
Well, the follow up to this thread is that Tesla installed the 8kw system with two Powerwalls about two weeks ago. We are waiting on the power company to give permission to operate but have been running off the grid since day one. Can’t tell exactly what I’m generating until the utility gives the “okay”, but I’ve been impressed with the whole process so far.

Power transfer from solar to battery has been seamless and running the house off the battery at night is awesome. It’s fun to have the AC running, doing laundry and still pumping power back to the grid.

The way I see it, I can pay for the solar or throw similar dollars to PG&E. All they do is repeatedly light the state on fire, so this is a better use of my dollars. Plus, after 10 years it will be paid off and energy will be mostly free.
 
There’s a lot of solar systems and becoming more popular where l live in Melbourne Australia we have a 3.2 kw system its initial cost of $3200 / and that was after subsidised by government , promotion .That,s on a small home approx 13 sq. ( sq = 10 sq metres in area ) we have had it approx 5 years it reduces our power bill approx half, to seasonal average of $ 100 aud. So $ 400 per annum.

Will fit batteries when they become more economical to purchase they are still quite expensive at moment .

Had some install issues , component issue which was fixed no cost, since then faultless .

Recommend solar , if it saves more and looks after all of us more .
 
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