I just got my tesla powerwall is
installed and sort of in love with them
it's just such a cool feeling to know
that you no longer need the energy grid
for you know your daily life however
when I started to look into the data it
came clear to me that not everyone
should buy one of these so I wanted to
dig into just kind of my experience so
far what I've learned and maybe help
guide you on whether or not a tesla
powerwall makes sense for your home
let's dive in the latest version of the
tesla powerwall also called the tesla
powerwall 2 has just under 14 kilowatt
hours of energy 13.5 is what they list
and this is part of the tesla eco system
where if you get solar and you have the
home batteries and then you have the
cars you have a lot of freedom and
independence based on just the stuff
you're generating and storing at your
own home most houses use around 28
kilowatt hours of energy per day so with
two of these at 27 kilowatt hours more
or less
you're pretty good to be a full day
off-grid and then of course within those
27 hours if the Sun comes out even a
little bit your solar panels should
charge them back up giving you this kind
of off-grid energy independent feeling
now typically these run around 7,000
dollars with installation every install
is different so when you go through this
process you have to fill out a form take
pictures of lots of things and send it
to them and then they come back with a
quote I earned these two power walls
from the Tesla referral program back in
2017 thank you to everyone that used my
code because these are super cool and as
I mentioned I am really really stoked on
them now the ones I got were the white
ones these are the standard ones you buy
you may have seen some other folks that
received the red ones that were actually
physically signed by JB and Elon and
Franz that's super cool but it actually
kind of worked out better because I
think the white ones look better and as
you'll see when we talk about
installation we had to put them outside
there just be kind of a shame to have
these really fancy ones with a hand
signature sitting out getting rained on
every day
speaking of installation it actually was
kind of
the original idea I had was to put them
in the garage but the garage where they
would be located was over 100 feet from
where the electrical panel is my house
built in the 1950s put the electrical
panel kind of on the opposite end and so
it was gonna be too far because there's
a communication wire that has to run and
it runs in a very low voltage so over a
hundred feet it just doesn't really work
as well now they can change that
apparently but then they'd have to kind
of reconfigure the system and all that
and it just didn't make a whole lot of
sense to put them in the garage plus if
they are in your garage they have to
have these barriers in front of them so
you don't hit them or they have to be
amounted high enough that they would be
above the standard hood height of a
vehicle which is pretty high my garage
is pretty short so it just didn't make
sense so that plan was out the next
challenge was to figure out where to put
them outside we would just mount them on
the house however they can't be next to
a bedroom and so we had to find a place
where we didn't have a bedroom and we
could put it and so it ended up being
just right between the studio that I
used to work that I used to make these
videos from and our master bathroom it's
kind of right next to the AC unit and
it's close to where the electrical panel
is so it all made sense one of the
interesting things is that we had to
basically make a concrete pad for them
to sit on because it's not there's no
concrete there and I was able to find
one for about 50 bucks from a local
Building Supply Company so this is a tip
if you are in this boat trying to do
this like their initial thought was you
need to actually pour concrete you know
go make molds and and make a concrete
pad but a local building company here in
San Diego just had one that I could buy
for 50 bucks so I went and did that
worked out great so in addition to the
power walls the both had to have their
own AC disconnect switches then you had
to have a gateway and a whole new panel
set up with basically every circuit from
the old electrical panel rewired into
this new one and basically now the the
grid itself is upstream from the rest of
your house meaning the grid can go away
and you can still function in fact
that's how the primary function works
typically if my solar system isn't
generating enough power I am pulling
from the battery
so it's really cool and it and it does
give you the sense of independence and
freedom because in theory you could go
off grid however that doesn't really
make a whole lot of sense
one thing Tesla just added was the
ability to look at very detailed data
about how you're using your energy and
what Gloria's data it is so in the app
you can see that I have my power wall
here it's currently charging there's two
of them listed there and you can click
into the power flow which is easily my
favorite diagram of all time showing
exactly what's happening with your
energy here we're looking at over four
kilowatts of solar energy being
generated right now three point six of
that or three point five going back to
the grid so I'm I'm building up a credit
with the electric company here and point
five of it powering the stuff that's
currently used in my house and
occasionally it's powering up or it's
charging the power wall I can dive into
the the history of this and see very
detailed stats of what's happening with
all these different sources and how the
energy is flowing from one place to the
other and until recently you could only
look at today and yesterday in the app
now you can actually click and look at a
week or even a month I don't have that
much data but you can kind of go back
you know look at the lifetime of it etc
etc so they're giving you just a really
cool visualizations of ways to to
understand this data and and I love that
obviously that that's my thing but you
know prior to this you had to go to the
api's and kind of reverse engineer it so
thankfully they did this and one of the
cool things is if you don't like these
visualizations I particularly don't find
bar charts are good over time series
which is the data we're looking to here
you can download the data and obviously
I did that either way I think it's
really cool that they're giving you this
data and it's really awesome just to see
this I actually made an old iPad into
sort of an art stand with that power
flow thing so anytime we have people
over I kind of explain what's going on
it's just a really beautiful
visualization so cheers said that tells
the team for making that the bar charts
the other stuff I think can be better
but hey it's a step in the right
direction and you're freeing the data
about this which is amazing one of the
challenges I've found so far with
the powerwall is charging my car so
typically I charge at work where I have
a charger here and that kind of fills up
mine but Jenny charges our model three
at home now she doesn't drive a lot so
she doesn't charge that often you know
maybe once or twice a week at most but
when she does if you think about it the
model 3 long range has somewhere around
78 kilowatt hours of energy stored and
if she needs to fill that thing up from
from close to zero this 27 kilowatt
hours stored in the and the power walls
are just a snack that's not even you
know not even approaching enough on a
regular basis if you went to work and
came back and charged every night it
would probably be fine but essentially
what's gonna happen is we're just gonna
just hammer that battery and then have
to go to grid power now thankfully
because we're using even less grid power
than before we've built up enough
credits to where it all kind of washes
out going back to the app though there
are a few ways to set up your power wall
and I think it makes sense just to kind
of talk about these and give you my
thoughts on them I'm not sure I've had
enough experience yet to be the expert
at this or really figure out what's best
but when you go into the customize
option here you can see there are
different ways to kind of use the energy
stored in your power wall the first one
is backup only where you never really
use the the power wall except in the
case of a backup so in the case of a
storm or something like that the other
one is this self powered one where
generally all your energy is going to be
coming out of there when instead of
pulling from the grid I like this
because that means I'm just reducing the
actual load on the grid and I'm becoming
more self-sufficient now in there you
can and I've set it here to 20 percent
you can reserve a certain percent of the
battery for power outages for here in
San Diego it doesn't make a lot of sense
because we really don't have power
outages regularly but if you do you may
want to set that up to thirty forty
percent whatever really makes sense or
just go on the backup only so I choose
the self powered mode because I feel
like it's just it's just really good
being you know kind of off-grid as much
as possible now there's also this
time-based control so if I click on this
advanced one here what you'll see is it
actually will will learn the peak and
off-peak schedule and so here in San
Diego as well as many other parts of
or other parts of the country now are
based are going to this time of use
rating where you pay more for the the
peak rates versus the off-peak and this
is pretty common and you can actually
kind of design that and set it up to
match whatever your local company
charges you that way let's say here in
San Diego it's between 4:00 and 9:00
p.m. are the super high peak I think
it's like 53 cents a kilowatt hour which
is nuts you can you can say hey use the
battery during that time but 12:00 to
5:00 a.m. when the energy is much
cheaper don't worry about it go ahead
and pull from the grid just just kind of
let the battery be this actually could
save or help with that problem with
charging the car where if the car is
designed to charge between 12 and 5 a.m.
and use this mode then it may you know
not use the battery don't go straight to
the grid which seems like a better deal
so I'll have to play with this over time
and see exactly what makes sense but
right now I'm just kind of in love with
this idea of being self powered and
being off-grid as much as I can be
living in a relatively a you know
suburban kind of area and then of course
you have the storm watch which which I
kind of mentioned but they actually have
a system here that monitors the weather
patterns and looks for when there's a
storm coming up and it will it will kind
of prep the battery for that so you
don't have to really worry about you
just leave that on if there is a storm
coming that looks like it may cause
power it'll it'll adjust the the energy
flow to optimize for that so that way if
you guys do have an issue it you know
it'll be fine so really cool really
advanced you know and like I said I just
love this concept of being off-grid or
you know kind of is independent as I can
be so speaking of going off grid it
definitely is possible with solar panels
and batteries but the cost of being
connected to the grid and having it as a
reliable backup is pretty low it's 10
bucks a month and for me that that's
something that that's worth it you know
it's cheaper than Netflix and a lot of
other things you probably spend money on
and it gives you reliable backup power
but another thing you could do is if you
don't have solar right now you can take
advantage of the federal 30% tax credit
the federal ITC it's called and bundle
this in so you would actually get 30
off the cost of your power wall making
the economics much more palatable much
better much you know more in your favor
versus just buying them outright we're
honestly the economics don't make a lot
of sense for most people let's look at
my actual utility bill from last year
and just kind of see how this would
shake out without the power walls but
with solar now most months I actually
did not produce more than 100% of the
power that I consume so I was still
using the grid even though I had a
relatively large solar system on my
house but you know due to the power
company giving me a $500 credit for
having solar I ended up not knowing
anything for all of last year
other than that $10 a month connection
fee which is kind of a separate thing
that you just have to pay for and the
reason this works is because of net
energy metering now nem is a sort of
controversial topic there were some some
recent changes to it but in the end well
the way it works is you sell back or you
you know give back energy that is in
excess of whatever you're consuming at
that moment so what you do is you kind
of use the grid as a battery here and
you give them that excess storage and
then when the Sun Goes Down in your
solar panels are no longer working
you essentially buy back you use those
credits so if you're generating more
energy than you're consuming you have a
negative balance in general this is a
super common thing that makes the
economics of the power walls really not
worth it for most people now you may be
wondering hey do I have net energy
metering well I'll put a link to that to
a website there that'll let you know but
38 states plus a lot of the territories
and provinces of the United States offer
this so chances are you do so in that
case when you have solar and net energy
metering it doesn't really make hardly
any sense to actually put your money
into this except for one case we'll talk
about in a second but let's assume you
don't have solar right now you could
actually benefit from this and a recent
Stanford study showed that across the
the warranty period the 10-year warranty
that you get on the power walls if your
average per kilowatt hour price is above
thirteen point nine cents you would at
least break even if not come out you
know well ahead now that comes out to
about twelve states in the United States
some of the
places with the most expensive
electricity are the ones you can imagine
Hawaii of course being number one as
always so in those places if you don't
have solar this could make a lot of
sense by doing what you know I like to
call rate arbitrage another term you may
see out there is called peak shaving
where essentially when you have the
lowest time of use rating the cheapest
electricity you fill these up and then
during the highest the peak time you you
live off of them and that was in the app
where I showed you that customized where
it'll actually figure that out for you
you just kind of go in and tell it when
is the expensive you know the peak rates
versus the off-peak rates but that other
case where it does make sense is if you
live somewhere that have regular power
outages so in the United States this is
kind of the the sub Atlantic area the
south that is on the coastal side where
hurricanes regularly come and you know
knock out power or cause other kind of
problems like that these things could be
really beneficial for you you know it
could literally be the difference
between life and death in some cases
there are a lot of cases and a lot of
people in the world that live in areas
with kind of insecure or unstable
electricity grids and so if you live in
one of those places this could be
something that whether or not the
economics make a whole lot of sense
having energy when the grid is down and
not being a regular thing is totally
gonna be worth it for you so it's not
one of those things where you're just
looking about looking to save money
you're looking to just have a better or
a better quality of life with this and
this definitely offers you that
opportunity and lastly I really can't
stress enough how awesome it feels to
look and see that I am really not using
any electricity from the grid at all I
mean it's just just incredible seeing
this and knowing that I have control
over how I'm consuming energy and what's
happening to it it really is a great
feeling and so you know we're human and
you know this is why behavioral
economics exists because we're not
machines this isn't just a math equation
here and so you know that is definitely
valuable and so if that's something that
is valuable to you and you can do things
like pair it with the solar purchase or
get you know that one of the discounts
from the SGI program in california or
similar
where you live then this can totally
make sense right if I naturally may not
be a hundred percent but knowing that
you have energy independence and
security could be enough for you
depending on your financial situation so
I'm curious what you guys have to say
about this do you have a power wall or
are you considering one do you have
solar let me know if there's anything I
missed in these calculations because
that's essentially what we're trying to
do here is is explore sustainable
technologies like this and see how
they're transforming the world around us
through the lens of data of course so
thank you for watching don't forget when
you free the data your mind will follow
I'll see you guys back in the news hey
thanks for watching the video I hope you
got something out of it now if you want
to dive a little bit deeper become a
part of the Taz nama community consider
joining us on patreon so what we have
set up are different things and ways to
engage such as a discord group which is
like this chatroom that is just the
folks that support the channel through
patreon I'm on there almost daily
engaging in conversation about how Tesla
and others like them are changing the
world around us for the better so if
you'd like to learn more go ahead and go
to patreon.com/scishow so mcc's and i
hope to see you there soon
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