- TESLA Solar Panels Review 2021 UPDATED (SHOULD YOU GET THEM?)
- What Tesla Solar Wont Tell You Unless You Ask…
- 5 Things You NEED to Know Before Ordering Tesla Solar
- Tesla is about to release NEW Powerwall batteries with better chemistry
- DONT WAIT! Get Tesla Solar NOW before its too late!! (1 Year Review, my actual costs, regrets etc)
- What you need to know before getting a Tesla Powerwall
- Tesla Solar Pros and Cons from a Real Customer – Honest Review of Tesla Solar and Powerwalls
TESLA Solar Panels Review 2021 UPDATED (SHOULD YOU GET THEM?)
what,my electricity bill is 175,thats insane last year i purchased,tesla solar panels and it was totally,worth it because my bill went from 175,dollars to only,20 if you guys want to see if tesla,solar panels are worth it,then keep on watching what is up guys,its chris with everyday chris and,welcome back to my channel,if you guys are new here make sure you,guys hit that subscribe button and as,always,like the video if you guys care about,the power of the sun,right now its just me the old ball and,chain as well as my two fur babies,living in a 2 600 square foot home we,use a ton,of electricity because your boy eats,a lot i mean seriously i go to costco,every week and i spend at least 200,on food we have two fridges five,air purifiers and a ton of lights that,we leave on 24 7,so that my dogs dont get eaten by a,coyote not only that,we also got a tesla daddy chill sucking,up all the electricity,in the past our electricity bill was,usually around 150,to 175 dollars every single month we,realized with all the air conditioning,usage as well as charging the tesla,we needed to do something about our,electricity bill and thats when we,looked up the power of the sun,not only that solar can actually help,increase your resale value of your home,so why not get it i also did a quick,google search and i found out theres a,federal,tax credit that gives you 26 off the,total of your solar system,until the end of 2022 and with biden,being president im sure theres going,to be more,green initiatives in the future before,we chose tesla solar i did a ton of,research on other solar companies,and yeah it seemed super intriguing with,their special solar panels,their crazy extended warranties and,their meticulous installation,however they wanted to charge at least,twenty thousand dollars,for a four kilowatt system whereas tesla,was only charging,eight and also its not like tesla solar,panels are a cheap product,they do back up their solar panels with,a 25 year warranty,and all of their solar products come,with a 10 year warranty which is pretty,good,however a few things have changed since,i last purchased solar,for one tesla now binders their solar,with a power wall,which means no matter what you have to,get a power wall its kind of weird that,theyre doing that because it seems like,theyre trying to make more money from,the customer,by forcing the get something that they,dont necessarily need,this is a good and bad thing its a good,thing because when you generate,electricity from your solar panels,that electricity goes straight into the,power wall unlike for me it goes back to,my utility provider what that means is,when you need to use electricity during,high usage periods such as four to nine,pm,you can actually use the electricity,from your power wall instead of using,the electricity generated,from your utility provider you also have,access to the tesla solar app,which gives you real-time feedback on,how much electricity you generated,as well as how much electricity youre,using and if there is a power outage you,can still stay,warm and cozy by using the tesla power,wall the bad thing about the tesla power,walls is that if you live in an area,where the electricity seldomly goes out,then the power wall isnt really,necessary also the power wall is a giant,battery so the battery does degrade over,time,decreasing the performance even though,it does come with a 10-year warranty,and lastly and the most important thing,it really juices up the cost of your,tesla solar panels,by a lot when i got solar in december of,last year inland cost me eight thousand,dollars,or six thousand dollars after the,federal tax credit however now with the,four kilowatt system the same one that i,have,plus the power wall it costs you twenty,thousand dollars,and after the federal tax credit around,fifteen thousand dollars,so thats a huge leap in price overall,you still get way more bang for your,buck,compared to another solar company,because it does include the power wall,but it seems like tesla was losing a lot,of money from its customers,in the past charging them almost nothing,for the solar panels overall its a huge,change now lets get back to ordering,ordering the tesla solar panels is,super easy its just like ordering a car,you put your address,you put how much utility bill normally,is and they give you a recommendation on,what system you should get,and of course you can always customize,it and choose more solar panels or less,solar panels,i will say that for us with a four,kilowatt system and a 2 600 square foot,home,living in southern california with,plenty of sun we still do owe,money every month about 15 to 20 dollars,and i did the calculations with the four,kilowatt system that we got at that,price point,we should break even in about six years,so assuming if you still want to get a,four kilowatt system with the power wall,you should break even in about 10 years,once you figure out what you want to do,you just have to put your credit card,info,in put 100 refundable deposit and then,thats it,after you do that you get an email,explaining the next steps and this is,where tesla,seriously needs to work on communication,is,horrible youre assigned an advisor and,its basically a hit or miss,my first advisor sucked she sucked,real good she never updated us on,anything whenever i emailed her she,never emailed me back and communication,was,horrible our second one though was fire,she was on top,of everything what tesla does is they do,everything virtually,they assess your roof im assuming using,google images,to determine the shape as well as the,type of roof you have,youre also asked to take photos of your,electrical panel as well as your roof,as best you can and other stuff after,the design team reviews it and accepts,or denies your request we got a response,telling us that they rejected,our solar order because we had an,incompatible roof type,something called double up rounded tiles,with mortar holding it together,which basically means you cant remove,the tiles to install the solar i even,automatically canceled my order without,even talking to me i was super upset,because i know for a fact that all my,neighbors,have tested solar and they had zero,issues,so i gave them a call to let them know,what the heck was going on,i told them to actually send someone to,come over to my house,and physically look at my tiles because,i can guarantee you you cant install,the solar,so they agreed they sent the super nice,guy over and he examined our roof and,said you could definitely install the,solar panels,he was telling me that because my home,is newer they make it look like its an,incompatible roof type to give it a more,premium,look however when you actually look,closer it is,a normal roof like any other and after,all that was done it was pretty much a,waiting game with zero communication,dont even bother checking the tesla,website for updates because i was still,on home assessment,when i was already done with my solar,installation waiting for approval from,my utility provider i called my advisor,at least once a week to see if there are,any status updates or when i could,schedule installation,and finally about two months after that,i was able to schedule an installation,for my solar panels,after that it was smooth sailing the,installation team,was amazing and i even told them how bad,the customer service was on the sales,aspect of it,and they said they get that issue a lot,they knew what to do and they were super,nice about everything,they followed all the safety procedures,and because my home is newer i asked,them if they could run the conduit line,through the inside of my home to the,attic into the garage to give it a more,cleaner look,and they were easily able to do that so,from outside you cant even tell i have,solar,all together the installation took about,eight hours and they only had to turn,off the power once,they also give you a tesla gateway that,you connect to your router,and pretty much that connects to t
What Tesla Solar Wont Tell You Unless You Ask…
today on the hookup im going to tell,you all the things that i wish i knew,before i got my 10.2 kilowatts of solar,panels installed because tesla solar,basically scanned me with what are at,best lazy and in some cases borderline,fraudulent behaviors and if you dont,know what to ask and how to advocate for,yourself theyll do it to you too,so lets start at the beginning after a,good bit of research i ended up choosing,tesla solar for three main reasons,first tesla is a huge company so buying,solar from them seemed like the safest,bet in an industry where misleading,youtube ads robo calls and door-to-door,salesmen are still very much a thing,second the lifespan of a solar panel is,25 years or more and the warranty period,on solar equipment usually lasts for,most of that lifespan,some local companies in my area even,offer a full 25 years of warranty,maintenance and support and all that,seems great but if jim solar from down,the street goes out of business in five,years the warranty goes with it so i,chose tesla solar under the assumption,that theyre likely to stay in business,for the foreseeable future or at least,through my warranty period the third and,most surprising reason that i went with,tesla solar was that out of the three,quotes that i got from my house tesla,solar was actually the cheapest and,offered the most solar capacity which i,guess should have been my first red flag,so lets take a quick look at the quote,experience for tesla solar on tesla.com,you click order now you put in your home,address and your average electric bill,and almost instantly you get a,recommended solar generation capacity,powerwall suggestion and installation,quote however keep in mind that at this,point tesla has absolutely no idea what,your property actually looks like and if,you live in a two-story house its,pretty unlikely that youll have enough,roof space to actually be able to fit,the number of panels that theyre,suggesting when i ordered my system back,in may of 2021 my initial solar,agreement was for 16.3 kilowatts of,panels and four power walls for a total,cost of sixty four thousand five hundred,and ten dollars a month later after,tesla gathered some satellite imagery of,my house and asked me to take some,pictures they had to revise my,installation quote for the number of,panels that would actually fit on my,roof which was now just 10.2 kilowatts,and three power walls and that revised,quote came in at forty four thousand,dollars even a little over thirty,percent less than the initial quote,little did i know that that number,plastered all over my estimate 10.2,kilowatts was basically meaningless and,instead the only actionable performance,number in the entire contract was this,one the estimated gross annual,electricity production which tesla,estimated at 12 551 kilowatt hours for,my property,interestingly if i go to a solar energy,estimation site and i put in my proposed,solar details it estimates that 10.2,kilowatts of panels in my location,should generate 15,796 kilowatt hours a year so why was,teslas estimate 20 percent less than,that well thats because despite it,being written all over my contract tesla,had no intention of actually installing,a system capable of generating 10.2,kilowatts its true on my roof i do have,10.2 kilowatts of solar panels producing,dc power but the inverter which is the,piece of equipment that converts dc,power of the solar panels to the ac,power of my home is only capable of 7.6,kilowatts of peak production the,frustrating part is that this practice,of installing a smaller inverter than,your panel capacity is actually a pretty,common one called inverter overdriving,and its basically designed to save some,money since adding a few more panels is,usually significantly cheaper than,adding a second inverter however my,issue is purely with the fact that tesla,never said anything about this reduced,capacity not even in the fine print in,fact even though there is an itemized,cost breakdown that does include the,inverter it specifically doesnt say how,many inverters or their capacity and the,only other place the inverter is,mentioned is in the powerwall section,where it says the inverter is capable of,15 kilowatts of continuous power and 21,kilowatts maximum but i now understand,that those numbers only apply to the,powerwall system and not to the solar,panels which again they continually,refer to as 10.2 kilowatts when it is,more accurately a 7.6 kilowatt system,for my location the result of this,smaller inverter is reduced production,between 11am and 2 p.m every day where,my solar generation graph has a,completely flat top called inverter,clipping in a properly sized system you,really shouldnt see a flat top and if,you do it means that your system would,have been capable of generating more,electricity if you had a larger inverter,by estimating the rest of the curve on,my solar generation graph ive,calculated that im losing an average of,about seven percent production per day,between the months of march and,september which comes out to four,percent production loss per year or,around 600 kilowatt hours,this issue definitely isnt unique to my,system and based on the number of posts,about it online it is a very common,practice for tesla solar tesla will not,tell you about this if you dont ask so,if youre the kind of person whos,willing to pay a little bit extra for,more solar production then you need to,advocate for yourself and ask your,project manager what your planned dc to,ac ratio is prior to installation which,for cost savings could be as high as 1.5,in regions that are further away from,the equator but for my setup in florida,even a ratio of 1.3 results in clipping,speaking of that solar generation graph,you might also notice the large dips in,solar production that i get throughout,the day the easy explanation for those,dips is cloud cover but thats not the,whole story tesla solar like most other,companies uses string inverters which,basically means that instead of each,panel being hooked directly to an,inverter the panels are tied together in,series to form a larger group,if you have a 7.6 kilowatt tesla,inverter then your panels can be divided,up into four individual groups utilizing,its four maximum power point trackers or,mppts and if you have the 3.8 kilowatt,tesla inverter it has two mppts and can,therefore support two groups of panels,grouping for solar panels actually,matters a lot because logically you,might think that if you had ten solar,panels in a group with eight in full sun,and two being shaded that your total,output would be eighty percent of your,total potential however in a string,inverter situation the actual efficiency,is significantly lower because the,inverter has to modulate the voltage of,the entire string to bypass the shaded,panels which means that you not only,lose the production of the shaded panels,but the rest of the panels will also,have their output significantly reduced,its not super necessary that you,understand the mechanisms behind the,process but you should be aware that in,general the more individual groups of,panels you have the less effected youll,be by cloud cover and shading so for my,system it makes sense that since i have,four groups of panels that represent,north east south and west faces of my,roof the tesla would wire each of the,faces into the four different mppts on,my inverter right,well no for whatever reason my panels,are divided up into just three groups,instead of utilizing the four maximum,power point trackers in the inverter and,my installers chose to just bridge two,of the mppts now i dont have any,insider knowledge about the minimum,number of panels per mppt for maximum,efficiency but judging strictly by the,inverter data sheet it seems like two,six panel strings would have been,significantly more beneficial than a,combined 12 panel string especially,since the north facing panels are the,least efficient so combining them with,my east-facing panels actually reduces,their effici
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5 Things You NEED to Know Before Ordering Tesla Solar
i recently put down a deposit with tesla,for both solar and powerwall,and through the process so far ive,learned some information that i wish i,had known ahead of time,so today im gonna share five things you,should know before ordering tesla solar,welcome everyone,my name is zach and i make videos about,sustainability and electric vehicles so,make sure to subscribe if you want to,see more,so the first thing i wish i had known,before ordering solar through tesla,is that there are other sizing options,besides the four,sizes they list on the website tesla,seems to imply that they only offer,solar panels in increments of 4,kilowatts,as you can see they list 4 8 12 and 16,kilowatt options,i stared at this website for many months,trying to decide if i wanted to go for,the 4 kilowatt or the 8 kilowatt size,because in reality i thought i needed,something in between,4 would likely be too small and 8 was,likely too much,but since i wanted to fully offset my,energy usage i selected the 8 kilowatt,size when putting my deposit down,and then after speaking with my project,advisor at tesla i learned that the,sizing options they advertise,are not actually all theyre willing to,do they will assess your energy bills,and roof layout and design a system,thats optimized for your specific,situation,so if a six or seven kilowatt system is,perfect for you,they will do that no problem the,downside here is that every time they,have to redesign your system layout due,to tree locations or sizing changes,it takes time for me each iteration has,taken at least a few weeks to get,through their design team,number two on this list complicates this,even further,most electric utility companies have a,limit on how,large of a system you can install and,still connect to their electric grid i,didnt fully understand how this worked,before putting my deposit down,and speaking with tesla basically the,solar provider has to calculate your,average,annual household electricity usage in,kilowatt hours,and then they calculate the expected,annual energy production from the solar,system they are going to install,in my case the electric provider limits,solar sizing to a maximum of 20 percent,more than your calculated energy usage,so basically you can only oversize,it by 20 or the electric company will,veto the plans,this isnt necessarily a big deal for,people that have lived in a house for a,number of years and have a lot of data,from their electric bills,but unfortunately for me that is not the,case since i moved in earlier this year,and kind of took a while to get settled,so my usage history,isnt very representative not to mention,that i moved in during the spring when,my electricity usage was very low,long story short the few months of bills,i had to reference,showed that i could really only install,a four kilowatt system,which i knew was going to be a lot,smaller than i really needed,none of my bills included any ac usage,and i was barely driving my car at the,time,so my charging needs were super low so,through talking with my project advisor,at tesla,he basically said that we could wait,until i had more bill history,or we could try to justify a larger,sizing to the electric company using,averages based on the square footage of,the house and,average usage from added things like an,electric car,this method can be a bit trickier though,and can take longer to get through,approval,im actually still in the process of,trying to size my solar system,due to these headaches im also looking,at replacing my ancient ac,unit with a heat pump which will greatly,increase my electricity usage in the,winter,so were trying to figure out the best,way to justify that to the energy,company,without waiting until after next winter,to install the solar system,i think were gonna get there but it has,certainly taken much longer than,expected,next up is that i dont think people,that are casually looking at solar and,powerwall,understand that youre likely going to,need more than one powerwall if you want,to actually be self-sufficient,and this isnt just because a single,power wall cant hold enough energy,its also because they can only charge,and discharge at a certain rate for the,power wall 2 the tesla sells now,the advertising limit is 5 kilowatts for,charging and discharging,but tesla recently increased this a bit,depending on the temperature,of the battery but lets just use 5,kilowatts as an example for when the,battery is too cold to take advantage of,these increases,if you had an 8 kilowatt solar system,with a single power wall,you would only be able to charge the,battery at five kilowatts and the same,goes for using the energy,if it was at night and you had an,electric stove on and maybe an electric,dryer as well,the power wall wouldnt be able to,discharge enough current,to power both appliances at the same,time,and youd pull energy from the grid,instead to make up the difference,thats what tesla tries to explain on,their website but they dont make it,super clear,whats cool about battery storage like,powerwall is that its modular,so if you add a second one it doubles,the power it can take for charging and,discharging so now youd be limited at,10 kilowatts,if you had three itd be 15 kilowatts,and so on but from what ive seen,two or three powerwalls seems to be the,sweet spot for most peoples needs,i think one is really only useful for,people looking for a short duration,battery backup during a power outage,and not really for people that want to,store their own solar energy,and not rely on the electric grid the,first powerwall is actually the most,expensive too,and thats because it includes the,gateway module and brains of the home,energy system,as well as the installation so you can,see here on the website that the first,powerwall is priced at ten thousand five,hundred dollars but,jumping to two is just seventeen,thousand dollars so each additional,powerwall,after the first is 6500 and being,modular,its easy to add another later on if you,want to fourth up on the list of things,i wish i had known before ordering tesla,solar is that getting a hold of an,actual person at tesla can be,challenging at least at first i first,put my deposit down on a sunday,and by monday afternoon i had two emails,from tesla and it seemed like they were,all over it i replied to the email from,my supposed project advisor that night,and then i didnt hear anything for two,weeks at that point i actually tried,numerous times to reach out again to,this project advisor both through email,and the phone and i got nothing then i,tried the generic tesla solar line,and was eventually redirected to a,living being,and it was my actual project advisor,from my local tesla branch,it turns out that the person that,emailed me first was someone back in,california that seems to be assigned to,thousands of people and are never,actually intended to be your point of,contact through the process,so that would have been nice to know,ahead of time so i didnt waste those,two weeks waiting for a response,but all that said once i got in touch,with my actual project advisor,things have been much smoother and hes,been extremely responsive as we work,through the solar sizing issues that i,mentioned earlier so my advice for,anyone that recently put an order in,or plans too soon is just to give it a,couple days,and then start calling tesla to find out,who your actual project advisor is,and get their direct email and phone,number alright so last on the list is,that tesla changes the financing options,quite frequently so if thats something,youre looking for,keep an eye on it when i was looking,earlier this year at solar options tesla,was offering various loan terms,including 5,10 and 20 years and the interest rates,varied a lot between them the 20-year,loan was around 5,interest and the 10-year loan was 4,interest and i cant remember exactly,what the 5-year loan was since i wasnt,really looking at that one but i know it,was less than four percent being the,shortest duration an
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Tesla is about to release NEW Powerwall batteries with better chemistry
many of you have been waiting to get a,Tesla power wall this huge demand not,enough of them to go around and to be,honest theyre kind of expensive but,thats all about to change for One Good,Reason hello my friends welcome to the,channel on the electric Viking great to,see you welcome to the new subscribers,really good to have you guys welcome,back everyone else really good to have,you too thank you for subscribing thanks,for your support this year its been an,amazing year been a bit of a roller,coaster ride for a number of different,reasons out of some of you who watch the,channel more often would be aware yeah,its been some ups and downs its been,some great times theres been some tough,times but overall its really been a,great year Tesla they make the power,wall the power wall is kind of like a,battery you can put on the side of your,house your business or wherever you want,and you can power your house or your,business with it its like a battery,pack which youre going to link up you,can put extra battery packs you can say,have I know someone personally who has,five power walls on their house theyve,got a big house and theyre totally,off-grid so they use no grid power at,all not connected to the Grid at all,they only use Teslas power walls to,power their very big seven-bedroom house,seven bedrooms big house expensive right,one of the challenges of batteries is,longevity right what do you buy a power,wall you want to hope its going to last,you for what 20 plus years right you,dont have to replace those battery,packs after say five years well lfp,batteries are one of the solutions to,this challenge of battery cycle,limitations in modern batteries lfp,battery packs generally last for around,three times as many cycles as lithium,ternary packs finally Elon Musk has made,the call and Teslas power walls will,shift to lithium-ion phosphate Battery,Technology thats one of the big changes,being made at Tesla well one of the,great things about lfp batteries is not,just the fact that yes you can do a lot,more Cycles less battery degradation,they last longer its also the fact fact,is much more Supply at least of lfp,batteries to Tesla and that is the key,reason why Tesla are about to ramp up,their deliveries massively of power,walls supply and demand has been a,problem demand hasnt been the problem,for Tesla but supply has been and its,one of the key reasons why Tesla Service,around this area is pretty pathetic,people complain that when they call,Tesla to order power walls or get it,organized or find out questions Teslas,customer service sucks one of the,problems here is Teslas understaffed in,this area and they just dont have,enough battery packs to go around thats,all about to change Elon Musk is saying,that Tesla is ramping up power wall,production and will finally increase,availability of the battery pack Tesla,has been production constrained with the,power wall for a very long time the,demand has been strong in a number of,markets like the US and Australia but,production hasnt been able to catch up,despite significant ramp UPS now why are,power walls so popular in Australia well,the biggest reason is solar we have,solar here its everywhere why is it,everywhere its very very cheap on,average we pay around 40 to 50 percent,of the cost for solar that you guys in,the US do this is thanks to generous,incentives and various other reasons but,all in all this accounts to a situation,where Aussies are becoming independent,of the grid like theres so many smart,people out there right now that have,basically Switched Off from the grid,that are just using power walls or some,type of batteries you can get battery,packs from byd a number of other,companies as well theyre connecting,those to their very very affordable,solar systems and paying off that system,within a matter of a few years and just,being totally energy independent in,addition theyre able to charge their,electric cars from their solar as well,and getting back to Power walls it took,Tesla about five years to deploy their,first 100,000 power walls then it deployed 100 and,more home battery packs in 2020 alone,despite the ramp up Tesla couldnt catch,up to the demand they faced and it had,to Tire power walls to solar systems and,stop taking orders for their packs so,basically Tesla was like well we dont,have enough of these to go around so,what well do is well bundle them,together with our solar system if you,want a power wall you have to buy solar,then they actually stopped taking audits,because they just had so many orders,that they felt like they were,disappointing customers by taking too,long to deliver the power wall within,the last 24 hours musk shared the power,wall page and he suggested that people,should order for blackout protection and,people think that the reason he tweeted,this was the electricity issues that,California is currently having and the,brownouts that some are experiencing the,other thing is Right Tesla now has their,virtual power plant in California so if,you buy a power wall you can connect to,the power plant and you can make money,through Teslas basically their metering,of the plants so what that system does,is it sends your power out out into the,grid it sells it when prices of,electricity are high and it brings power,back in to your battery pack when prices,are low now obviously you can also,charge your pack using solar so you can,basically make money out of nothing and,this is the genius of Teslas virtual,power plant and its one of the key,reasons why Tesla plans on becoming one,of the worlds largest energy,Distributors over the next 10 to 15,years however right now in the US you,still cant order just the power pack,you have to order both a power wall and,Tesla solar panels however musk said,that Tesla might open up orders for,powerwall by itself by the end of the,year for now Supply is too low but,ordering a power wall by itself should,be possible by the end of the year what,does all this come down to why are they,doing this how is this possible it comes,down to one thing Tesla is transitioning,its power walls its changing from,lithium ternary power or NCA batteries,to lfp batteries its a big Advantage,its an advantage in Supply menu youll,be able to buy a power wall if youre in,the US and Australia and its an,advantage on longevity the batteries,will definitely last a lot longer,theres a big big Plus in my view I,recently made a video talking about,Teslas transition of their big battery,packs their commercial packs and their,smaller packs from ternary batteries to,lfp chemistry batteries now those,batteries obviously predominantly come,from the largest battery manufacturer in,the world catl but Tesla does now also,get batteries from byd who have become,the second largest battery company in,the world within the past few weeks when,only a year ago there were the fifth,largest being an absolutely historic,rise in to be one of the worlds,dominant battery producers so clearly,the solution here all along for Tesla,was using lfp in their battery packs,their commercial and residential packs,thats whats happening and in my view,this is really really good news now,right now we dont know exactly how long,Teslas backlog of power walls is about,this time last year it was 80 000 could,be double that now no one really knows,so if you want to get a power wall my,tip is put in your order as soon as you,can refresh the page refresh it refresh,it refresh it or just stay tuned to this,Channel and Ill let you guys know as,soon as those orders become possible for,you guys in the US what Ive made,possible I mean as soon as its possible,for you to order just the pack and not,the paddles because Im going to guess,that most people already have solar,panels and theyre just waiting for the,battery packs to become available thank,you for watching have a great day bye
DONT WAIT! Get Tesla Solar NOW before its too late!! (1 Year Review, my actual costs, regrets etc)
What you need to know before getting a Tesla Powerwall
Sponsored by SurfShark VPN.,Click on the link in the description and enter promo code UNDECIDED for 83% off and 3 extra,months for FREE!,It took a while, but I finally got my Tesla Powerwall installed.,There’s a few things I learned going through the process that might be useful if you’re,thinking about getting a home battery installed.,So let’s go through what you should know before getting a Tesla Powerwall.,And … my first impressions of it.,I’m Matt Ferrell … welcome to Undecided.,First off, I want to thank all of you who used my Tesla referral code over the past,couple of years.,This Powerwall, as you can probably tell by the color, is a founders edition Powerwall,that I earned through the referral program.,So I only had to pay for the installation, but I’ll run through all of the costs and,my first impressions in a bit.,Getting this installed was a bit of a comedy of errors.,There wasn’t one big gotcha or anything like that, but just a bunch of small road,bumps and blips that collectively made it an incredibly frustrating, almost 4-month-long,experience.,And it’s what I learned from that that I want to share with you so you know what to,look for, what to ask, and what to expect.,While my path had some bumps, I’ve still got a fully functional Powerwall that’s,already impressed me … a lot.,There’s two basic categories of things you should know about when installing a home battery.,First is understanding what your energy requirements are.,It’s the same thing you’d need to know if you’re getting solar, but with a battery,system it’s important because of the electrical load it’s capable of supporting.,If you don’t have an energy monitoring setup in your home, which I do with Sense, then,you can get a ballpark figure by looking at your electric bill.,Just look at the kWh used each month to see how much electricity you use on average.,And then create a list of your major appliances and items around the house like HVAC, refrigerator,,stove, pool, etc. and write down their power draw in watts.,You can usually find this on labels on the device or online.,If you add them all up, you’ll start to get a high level sense of what your home might,use in kW if everything was turned on.,There’s some good reasons why doing this is important.,I’ve covered this in a previous video, but home batteries have limitations for their,continuous power output.,The Powerwall has a cap at 5kW continuous power with a peak load up to 7kW.,These limitations are per Powerwall.,So if you have 2, you’d have a max of 10kW continuous power output available.,So you can probably see where I’m going with this.,Take the number from your appliance tally and you’ll understand how many Powerwalls,you might need to support 100% of your use if everything was running.,In my case, one Powerwall isn’t quite a enough, but that’s totally fine.,It really depends on what your goals are with battery backup.,For me I’m most interested in providing a base level of backup to keep things like,the heat going in the winter during a power outage, and to keep the refrigerator from,defrosting.,If you’re like me and your goal isn’t 100% coverage, there are a couple of options.,One path is what I have here.,This Powerwall is backing up my entire electric panel, so in theory everything in the house,“could” run during a blackout … just not all together.,The other path I could have taken was adding a sub panel which would carve out essential,load circuits.,That sub panel could have had my HVAC, refrigerator, and a few other items in there.,Then the Powerwall would only backup that group and everything else in my house would,go dark in a blackout.,Going into this I had a basic understanding of that, but didn’t really think about it,until I was well into the process of getting it installed.,The installer I went with, which was not Tesla, didn’t walk me through my options.,They were just going to do a straight install, but never even brought up other things I might,want to consider doing.,When I realized that was the case I started asking questions, which caused a brief delay,to the installation date.,This was my first road bump in the install process, which is why I bring it up.,Make sure you do a bit of homework before you leap in because there’s no guarantee,your installer is going to be proactive and inform you of your options up front.,Whichever path you choose for your setup, you might want to consider getting a soft,start for appliances like your HVAC.,As I mentioned, the Powerwall has a peak load capacity of 7kW, but when you push into that,zone, you risk tripping the Powerwall’s emergency shutdown if you overload it when,something like your HVAC kicks on in a blackout.,Major appliances like that can have a sizable spike in power draw when the motor kicks on,,so a soft start can dramatically shave off that power spike.,Some installers recommend doing that as par for the course.,Mine didn’t, but I may add one down the road.,Again, knowing this kind of thing up front means you can ask the right questions of your,installer.,And if you’re installing this with solar and want to ensure that your home can go indefinitely,in a power outage, you need to make sure you’re balancing the battery’s power capacity with,the output capacity of your solar panel system.,If your solar panels can output more power than your battery can take in, the battery,system will have to shut off the panels during a blackout at times to manage that intake.,Otherwise it’s too much power for the battery to handle.,The second category of things to be aware of is all around how prepared your home is,to handle a Powerwall.,And the first thing you have to look into is … do you have a service disconnect switch?,To my knowledge, I’ve never lived in a house with a separate service disconnect switch.,It’s standard procedure for new homes, but all of the older homes I’ve lived in haven’t,had one.,They’re usually just gigantic switches near the power meter, or sometimes on the meter,box itself.,My house didn’t have one.,The main circuit breaker in my panel was acting as the service disconnect too.,Well, with a Powerwall, or any battery system for that matter, you’re going to need a,service disconnect.,That bit me in the butt when one of the electricians stopped by the night before the install to,scope out the setup in person.,He spotted the lack of a service disconnect right away, which delayed the project significantly.,They had to coordinate with the electric company for shutting off the service temporarily and,had to install a disconnect at the same time as the Powerwall.,I’m still not sure why they didn’t include any questions about this in the self-evaluation,form I filled out, or why nobody caught it in the photos I took.,That’s the next big road bump that I experienced, which brings me back to asking a lot of questions,up front.,You can’t rely on your installer having procedures in place to mitigate that type,of thing happening … but in my opinion, a good installer should have that covered,,like having a simple question about service disconnects in the self-evaluation.,If it’s required, they should confirm you have it upfront.,Happily, this next one wasn’t a road bump for me, but be sure you select a place with,plenty of space.,The Powerwall comes with a Gateway, which is what manages where the power goes.,It’s the brain of the system.,The gateway needs about 2 feet of width and 3 feet of height.,And the Powerwall itself requires 4 feet by 5 feet for each Powerwall, and about 6 feet,open in front of it.[^1] And you need a really good Wifi connection in the area of the Gateway,or an available ethernet jack for a wired network connection.,Overall, my installation experience was not great.,It wasn’t one big thing that caused problems.,It wasn’t one person’s fault that I got hit with lots of delays.,It wasn’t 100% the installers fault … and I’m not blameless in this either.,The Powerwall arrived at my home on July 29th, but wasn’t insta
Tesla Solar Pros and Cons from a Real Customer – Honest Review of Tesla Solar and Powerwalls
hey everyone my names scott and im a,tesla solar customer and i just recently,had my system installed im going to run,through,what are my pros and cons of choosing,tesla for your solar compared to,another company so,lets get into im get this is some of,the points that im going to cover,some areas where tesla is a clear winner,like on cost,some areas where it doesnt really,matter so much which company you pick,and then maybe some areas where actually,tesla isnt as good,as the competition so im going to go,through each of these details but before,i get into it i did want to point out,that if you do decide to go ahead and,order tesla for solar do use my referral,code you will save up to five hundred,dollars and uh thats the thats the,code there you just go to tesla dot com,slash referral slash scott five two two,nine,five one other thing to note i do have a,bunch of other tesla solar tesla,powerwall videos um check them out and,ive got more coming soon um,particularly in terms of how the system,performs so,do hit that subscribe button so you get,alerted,when theres more available,so lets get into it and starting with,the solar panel cost this is an area,where tesla in my opinion clearly wins,why because other companies can be up to,forty percent,more expensive and thats quite a,significant difference,so,tesla has a very simple pricing,structure it they charge two dollars per,watt this by the way is how the industry,charges youre not paying for each panel,youre paying for the amount of,electricity that those panels produce,from quotes i got last summer,and so summer 2021,those quotes were up to forty percent,more expensive,by the way uh when comparing costs make,sure that youre looking at it before,incentives before tax rebates so if you,do get quotes from other companies just,check the small print to see exactly,how theyre calculating those prices,so then this begs the question well why,is tesla cheaper i mean part of it is,economies of scale of course theyre a,nationwide company and they,sell,a lot of solar but there is one,legitimate reason why,there is a different,cost uh,in terms of panels and so theres,something called the performance,guarantee the panels degrade slowly over,time they produce less electricity as,they get older,and so the,25 year mark is where,companies you know will warrant,their panel output and so,usually youll see between 80 and 90,percent,performance guarantees at the 25 year,mark so lets say um,tesla and i dont know because they,sometimes change their panels but at,least the tesla panels i have the,efficiency or sorry the performance,guarantee is 80,at 25 years the best in the market i,think are high 80s or maybe even up to,90 percent so when i was looking this i,was thinking well is it worth spending,40 more,to get 10 more output in 25 years time,and for me that was a clear no uh so,thats why,the performance guarantee at the 25 year,mark it really,didnt factor into um you know,into my decision,so but it is something to consider,theres another,aspect that people will talk about,particularly if theyre installing you,know the best quality panels they say,well our panels are more efficient,um and what that means is that they,produce more energy per square inch,effectively but,that doesnt matter uh,for most people at least if you have a,roof with plenty of room,thats fine just get a few more panels,um but if you have a small roof and,youre limited as how many panels you,can get up there and youre trying to,maximize every square inch and get the,most number of watts out of it then yeah,panel efficiency does does,come into so,just remember you know what i said,earlier,the industry charges per watt theyre,not charging you for the cost of the,panel itself theyre basing it on the,number of watts it produces so,this,particular point like i said unless you,have a small roof and youre trying to,maximize panel efficiency just doesnt,matter,so theres obviously the cost of the,panels themselves but then theres also,the financing and most people will,finances a relatively expensive purchase,could be,you know anything from i dont know ten,fifteen twenty thousand dollars up to,you know forty or fifty thousand dollars,uh of course it depends how many,kilowatts you wanna produce,so looking at,uh this is a real quote from a company i,wont name them but theyre a reputable,uh company that i went to a local,company,they have as you can see a cash price,and then a couple of different finance,options one over 12 years one over 20,years now,what all of the local,companies do is they have to charge a,finance fee now thats not the interest,this is just a fee for buying the,financing effectively so in this 12-year,example that fee equates to,2100 dollars but in the 20 20 or example,thats much higher,and of course you still have the,interest on top right,so,it becomes a much more expensive uh,purchase when youre factoring in right,maybe im paying 40 more for panels from,another company and im paying a finance,fee,on top,ive got one other example here and you,know there is certainly more flexibility,if you go to a local company because,they can usually offer different types,of financing different lengths,of time,tesla doesnt do that its they really,just have one offer,so you know that they have less less,flexibility but but look at these rates,right if you want to minimize that loan,fee heres one thats only 660 dollars,your interest rate is going to be much,much higher,so,thats the second way that youre youre,paying,youre paying more,so just to summarize in the cost okay so,other companies can be up to 40 more,expensive they charge those finance fees,on top of the cost of the panels and,theyre usually offering higher interest,rates tesla is able to offer,very competitive interest rates uh,because of their size and their scale,and just because of uh you know their,funding and the fact that they,have billions of dollars,in the bank right now,so just for another reminder if you do,order tesla solar make sure you use my,referral code and youll save up to 500,now youll notice on the side of this,house theres a couple of uh square,boxes those are tesla powerwalls and,what is a powerwall well as this,image uh shows you uh this is during a,power outage theres a storm happening,this house here has got their power wall,installed and their electricity is still,on while their neighbors are sitting in,darkness and so for me,this was a really big part of it right i,didnt just want to save money by,putting in solar i didnt just want to,help the environment i actually wanted a,better,energy experience if you like so what is,a powerwall its battery storage and it,provides you the ability to stay online,stay up and running,keep all your appliances running during,an outage and that uh thats pretty,powerful,i think one of the,big myths about solar is that if you,just have solar panels,your power goes out when the grid is,down uh so during outage your solar,panels although they could produce,electricity theyre not able to its,only if you hook up solar panels to,battery storage are you able to actually,keep running,during an outage so i really wanted,that uh that flexibility,so,the tesla power walls uh they theyre,not cheap right theyre about eight to,ten thousand dollars each um they do,give you a discount if you buy more so,just play around with their,quoting tool on their website,but one thing really important point to,note is that,while,all the independent companies will tell,you that they can supply a tesla power,wall or something like it,their prices are usually much higher and,because theres,you know all the supply chain issues,tesla is priority their own direct,customers for the power walls rather,than,independent uh companies so you may just,not be able to get the power walls,um,if if you if you dont buy direct from,from tesla,so,one really important point to know about,the power walls is that some states and,some utility companies actually offer,incentives for install