![\"Tesla](\"https://jongleberry.com/blog-images/tesla-powerwall-settings.png\")
The new construction home I purchased from KB Home included solar panels from Swell Energy who offered me the option to add a Tesla Powerwall for $14,700.\nLuckily, I was able to include the cost in my mortgage!\nBut was it worth it?
\nDuring this time, I had a fear that the Powerwall would not be there when I closed on my home because I’ve been hearing stories about Tesla Powerwall orders that were delayed for months.\nFortunately, when I did a walkthrough a few weeks before I closed on my house, it was there!\nMy solar panel’s PTO was also enabled before I closed, so I didn’t have to worry about it.\nOverall, I am pretty pleased with the buying process.
\nAdditionally, what I really enjoyed with Swell is the customer service.\nUnlike Tesla, I can email someone and they’ll respond with an actual answer within a day.\nWhen you call Tesla for Powerwall support, expect to wait hours on the phone.
\nFor those installing a system in California, Tesla already ran out of its SGIP credits whereas Swell Energy did not when I had my system installed,\nthus I was able to get the SGIP credits, which was $1,740 for me.\nSomething to consider, but not a deal breaker when selecting a system, and these credits will eventually be depleted.
\n$14,700 was a few grand more than the price Tesla was quoting online for a Tesla Powerwall, so it was definitely more expensive.\nHowever, I consider the higher price a way to jump the queue and make sure the Powerwall was installed before I closed.\nAdditionally, the additional cost was partially offset by the SGIP credits I received.\nI am guessing Tesla prioritizes these third party sellers because either they pay more or prefer not having to worry about installation.
\nEven though Swell installs the Powerwall, you still have to contact Tesla for many Powerwall issues.\nFor example, Tesla hid the Energy Exports option from me and Swell couldn’t help; they told me to call Tesla, which did in fact solve the problem.\nIdeally, Swell handled more of the customer service.
\nWhen installing the option, Swell did not explain the options to me.\nI didn’t realize, until I moved in, that my house was only partially backed up.\nI would’ve paid more to fully back up my house or at least install the system so that I could easily fully back up my home in the future (for example by installing a Span).\nInstead, I am simply left with sadness as a lot of the calculations and features on the Tesla app do not work properly for partially backed up homes.
\nAs of this writing, my biggest struggle with Swell Energy is that they have an agreement with Tesla to not allow any of their customers to join a Tesla VPP.\nBecause I am not in the Swell service area for their VPP (most likely because my home is new construction), I am currently unable to join any VPP.\nThey have been discussing with Tesla about giving me an exemption to this agreement for weeks, which I have little hope for, as they have just stopped responding to my follow ups.
\nOverall, I am pretty happy with Swell Energy.\nIf you are getting a Tesla Powerwall from them, make sure you learn my lessons and ask questions about how much of your home is backed up, whether you’d be eligible for SGIP or other credits, and whether you can join their VPP.\nPerhaps the biggest reason I would use Swell Energy over Tesla is because I am a fan of Enphase Microinverters and have read way too many /r/TeslaSolar posts about Tesla’s inverters failing and their customer support sucking.
\nHowever, if I were to get solar again, I would just buy directly from Tesla.\nIt’s cheaper, you can join the VPP, you can get the new Powerwall 3, and Tesla’s inverters are fine.\nI don’t see the need of going to other solar companies.
\n\n\n", "url": "https://jongleberry.com/posts/swell-energy-and-the-tesla-powerwall", "title": "Tesla vs. Swell Energy for Powerwall Installation", "summary": "Pros & cons of installing a Powerwall through Tesla vs. a third party such as Swell Energy", "date_modified": "2023-09-05T00:00:00.000Z", "date_published": "2023-09-05T00:00:00.000Z", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Ong", "url": "https://jongleberry.com" }, "tags": [ "personal-finance", "rewards-programs", "solar-battery" ] }, { "id": "https://jongleberry.com/posts/things-you-should-do-to-maximize-savings-with-a-tesla-powerwall", "content_html": "If you decide to buy from Tesla, use my referral code! If you’re interested in installing from Swell Energy, let me refer you and I’ll give you a third of my commission!
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After fidgeting around with my Tesla Powerwall for over a year, I’ve finally settled on these TODOs for maximizing your savings.\nThese TODOs assume you have a Powerwall for the purposes of saving money, not for backup or self-generation, as the goals will be different.\nI, for example, am not worried about backups because there aren’t many outages in my area, but care about savings due to the high electricity rates in my area.
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If you are on a time of use electric plan with your utility (which you should be doing when you have a Powerwall),\nenable the TOU option for the Powerwall to maximize savings.\nIf you don’t have TOU with your current utility provider, look into switching to TOU.\nSolar panels and battery allow you to shift your energy usage and exports to the best times with time-of-use plans, maximizing the benefits of the system.
\nLower your reserve to the recommended 20%.\nYou can risk going lower but you don’t want your Powerwall running out of energy if there is in fact an outage as low power can damage your Powerwall.
\nThe rates that Tesla provide aren’t accurate.\nFor example, as I am on NEM 2.0, it had my buy and sell solar prices to be equal, which is not true.\nI am taxed about $0.03 per kw imported from the grid, which Tesla did not take into account.\nBy adjusting the rates, the Powerwall became smarter and tried to minimize the amount of power I import from the grid by using as much of my solar as possible whereas before it assumed importing and exporting at any time was equivalent cost-wise.
\nAdditionally, there may be additional taxes and fees not taken into account.\nFor example, Santa Ana levies a 5.5% tax to my electricity bill, which is used to subsidize low income households.\nThis tax is not taken into account by Tesla’s rates and have to be updated manually.
\nBy default, only solar will be exported to the grid when it is being generated.\nBy selecting “Everything”, your Powerwall will export all its energy at the peak hours to maximize savings.\nThis will cycle your Powerwall all the way to the reserve percentage you set above.
\n![\"Tesla](\"https://jongleberry.com/blog-images/tesla-powerwall-energy-exports.png\")
In the image above, my Powerwall is charged by solar during the day, then exports all its energy down to the backup reserve percentage during the peak hours of 4pm-9pm PT.
\nIf you don’t have sufficient solar to charge your Powerwall, you’d want to enable grid charging to top off your battery.\nThis will also enable Tesla to maximize your savings, especially if you’re on net metering.
\nHowever, you may be ineligible for this; I am ineligible for 5 years because I got an SGIP Rebate.
\nThere is no control over when Storm Watch pulls energy from the grid.\nFor example, if a storm watch alert comes in the middle of peak hours,\nyour Powerwall will charge from the grid at peak hours at peak prices, which may cost you a lot of money.\nWhen you get a Storm Watch notification, skip it if it’s going to charge your battery during peak hours.\nTry enable/disabling/skipping as needed so that it’s charged off peak hours.
\nLastly, you’ll want to join one of the many virtual power plants.\nThis is similar to above where you export all your Powerwall energy to the grid,\nbut with VPP events, you will export the energy at a time requested by your electricity company and receive extra money to partipate, usually an extra $2 per kwh.
\nIf you’re ineligible for a VPP like me, join a demand response program like OhmConnect.\nI earn about $7 per OhmConnect event and they occur throughout the year (at least 3x per month), yielding a higher return than VPP seasons as VPP events are becoming less common.
\n\n\nInterested in buying Tesla Solar and/or Powerwall? Use my referral code!
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\n\n", "url": "https://jongleberry.com/posts/things-you-should-do-to-maximize-savings-with-a-tesla-powerwall", "title": "Things You Should Do to Maximize Savings with a Tesla Powerwall", "summary": "If your goal is to maximize your savings when buying a Tesla Powerwall, follow these steps ASAP!", "date_modified": "2023-09-04T00:00:00.000Z", "date_published": "2023-09-04T00:00:00.000Z", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Ong", "url": "https://jongleberry.com" }, "tags": [ "personal-finance", "tesla", "solar-battery", "real-estate" ] }, { "id": "https://jongleberry.com/posts/arcadia-community-solar-shutting-down", "content_html": "Sign up to OhmConnect with my referral link.
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Trying new services is always a risk.\nSince my last post about Arcadia Community Solar,\nthey have since shut down their offering.\nLooking at their site, they seem to be moving away from their consumer business towards B2B,\nwhich I don’t understand at all.
\nI have about $450 in credit remaining with them, which they won’t refund me all at once.\nInstead, they are refunding me $5.17 per month, but are also requiring me to subscribe to their $5/month plan.\nI have to subscribe to their services for another 87 months or 7 years to get my full refund.\nThis in turn makes the refunds useless except for the additional credit card rewards I receive (since Southern California Edison does not allow automatic credit card payments).\nThese credit card rewards are about $4/month, assuming 2% cash back on an average $200/month electricity bill.
\n", "url": "https://jongleberry.com/posts/arcadia-community-solar-shutting-down", "title": "Arcadia Community Colar Shutting Down and Not Refunding Me at All at Once", "summary": "Arcadia has since shut down their community solar program since my last post and they are requiring me to remain subscribed to get my refund.", "date_modified": "2023-08-18T00:00:00.000Z", "date_published": "2023-08-18T00:00:00.000Z", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Ong", "url": "https://jongleberry.com" }, "tags": [ "personal-finance", "rewards-programs", "solar-battery" ] }, { "id": "https://jongleberry.com/posts/four-months-with-tesla-powerwall", "content_html": "In November 2022, I bought a new construction house in Orange County, California which included a 3kw solar array.\nAdditionally, I purchased a $14,700 option to purchase a Tesla Powerwall.\nThe solar array is estimated to be $9,740 retail by the installer.\nI didn’t have a choice with the solar array - I didn’t even have the option to add more solar panels.\nHowever, was my $14,700 Tesla Powerwall a good purchase decision?
\nThe primary reason was I got a Powerwall was that if I didn’t, I would be thinking about getting one every day, which would take up a lot of brain capacity.\nThe cost of using my brain capacity on it would cost much more than the amortized cost of purchasing the Powerwall, as you’ll see below. The second goal was for cost savings, especially since the builder wouldn’t allow me to add more solar panels.
\nThe final goal was for backup during outages as I experienced quite a few outages living in Westwood, Los Angeles.\nInterestingly, I found SCE to be a much more reliable electricity provider than LADWP.\nEven if I broke even in cost savings,\nI’ll be happying knowing that I won’t be susceptible to power outages except for a few appliances.
\nI was disappointed with how my Powerwall was set up because it did not provide whole-home back up to my fully electric house.\nInstead, it was set up as a partial-backup with the following bypassed:
\nI don’t mind that my EV chargers bypass the Powerwall, but was quite disappointed to learn that my HVAC, washer/dryer, and water heater were.\nI can choose to charge my EV at night, but being price sensitive to running the AC, running the washer/dryer, or taking a shower during the peak hours of 4pm-9pm is quite annoying.\nIf the Powerwall backed up my HVAC and washer/dryer as well, I would be saving a lot more money.
\nHowever, I don’t think a whole-home backup would even be possible with just one Powerwall.\nThere’s no mechanism for it to communicate with the other appliances (except for the EV) to turn off or lower power usage during an outage,\nso there’s a chance that the appliances would pull too much energy and break something.\nYou’d most likely need multiple Powerwalls to make sure this doesn’t happen as well as more solar panels to charge them.
\n![\"SCE](\"https://jongleberry.com/blog-images/sce-winter-rates-2023.png\")
![\"SCE](\"https://jongleberry.com/blog-images/sce-summer-rates-2023.png\")
For Southern California Edison, the peak hours are between 4pm and 9pm, which is around when solar panels stop generating electricity.\nThe Powerwall’s time-of-use operational mode does a great job at maximize savings by:
\n#1 & #2 saves the ~$0.30 difference per kw between on-peak and off-peak pricing.\nThus, if I offset 4kw that day, that’s $1.20 saved!
\n#3 exports all the energy generated by the solar panels to the grid.\nIf you only had solar panels (i.e. no Powerwall) that generated, say, 5kw during the peak hours, but your house used 3kw, your solar panels would only export 2kw to the grid at the on-peak rates.\nHowever, with a Powerwall, the 5kw will be exported to the grid at the on-peak rate and the 3kw used by your house will be discharged from the Powerwall using an off-peak rate, maximizing savings!
\n![\"Powerwall](\"https://jongleberry.com/blog-images/powerwall-daily-usage-example.png\")
My monthly solar generation and Powerwall discharge according to the Tesla app, which only includes electricity that passes through the Powerwall:
\n| Month | \nSolar Generated (kWh) | \nPowerwall Discharge (kWh) | \n
|---|---|---|
| 2023 January | \n238.5 | \n141.8 | \n
| 2023 February | \n308.4 | \n149.9 | \n
| 2023 March | \n388.8 | \n144.4 | \n
Note that these are winter months, so the solar generation should increase significantly in the summer months.
\nIn total, I was able to get $9,072 in rebates from my $24,440 ($9,740 + $14,700) system, making the net price of the system to be $15,368.
\nThe U.S. governments provides a 30% tax credit on solar, which I took for both my solar panels and Powerwall.\nThis amounted to $24,440 * 30% = $7,332.\nThe rebate for the Powerwall alone was $4,410.
SGIP is a California program that incentivizes installing energy storage systems.\nMy Powerwall was only eligible for a $1,740 rebate.
\nLet’s calculate how much the Powerwall is saving me and whether it was worth it.\nThe Powerwall cost $14,700, which I was able to bundle into my 30 year, 3.75% mortgage.\nThis ends up being about $68.08 per month with interest.
\nAfter the tax rebates of $4,410 and $1,740 for my Powerwall, the net price is $8,550.\nEven though I amortized the Powerwall over 30 years at a low interest rate,\nI got a rebate for almost 42% of it within the first year!\nThe $6,150 rebate’s portion of the loan is like taking out a tax-deductible loan at 3.75%, which I would happily take at this time, so we can consider it income positive and ignore it for the rest of the calculations.
\nDue to the rebates, to break even, we can lower our target monthly savings of $68.08 to $39.60, which is how much a 30 year loan for $8,550 at 3.75% is.\nCost-shifting 150 kWh every month at a price difference of about $0.30 equals $45 per month saved just from the Powerwall.\nIt’s worth it, currently barely, but the savings should increase in the future as the price difference in on-peak and off-peak increases as CA adds more solar panels.
\nIf it weren’t for the tax credits, this would not be economically feasible at all.\nMortgage interest rates reaching 6% also makes it economically infeasible.\nIf you aren’t able to roll it into your mortgage like I did, it would probably be economically infeasible as well as the rates are probably higher, the loan term is probably shorter, and the interest wouldn’t be tax-deductible.
\nBecause the loan for the Powerwall is rolled into my mortgage, the interest portion is tax-deductible up to a limit.\n$14,700 over 30 years at 0% interest is about $40.83/month, so the payment’s average interest portion of about $68.08 - $40.83 = $27.25 is tax-deductible.
Additionally, the Powerwall allows my solar panels to return more energy to the grid during peak hours.\nHowever, it would be difficult for me to calculate how much money this actually saved me because I don’t have easily-accessible hourly data.
\nAlso, note that the solar panels and the Powerwall are excluded from property tax assessments.\nNot really a savings, just not an additional cost.
\nThe Tesla app tells me an estimate amount of savings of my entire system.\nThe numbers also don’t add up - a lot of times, it says that I used grid energy during peak hours, but individual days don’t show an grid energy usage during peak hours.\nI just don’t bother looking at Tesla’s estimated savings number at all.
\n![\"Tesla](\"https://jongleberry.com/blog-images/powerwall-2023-02-savings.jpeg\")
\nI’m pretty sure I am saving more than what Tesla tells me since the amount of electricity generated from my solar panels for the month alone almost adds up to the estimated savings Tesla shows.
\nTesla has a Storm Watch feature which fully charges your battery before a storm.\nHowever, I live in Santa Ana, and every Santa Ana Wind triggers a Storm Watch,\nwhich is quite often and quite annoying.\nAdditionally, Storm Watch overrides the Time of Use plan, so it may charge your battery at peak hours, costing quite a bit of money.\nI disabled it and only enable it temporarily when I want to fully chage my Powerwall from the grid.
\nThe Powerwall has a setting for how to charge your EV during an outage.\nHowever, as mentioned above, my EV chargers bypass my Powerwall, and there is no setting to disable this.\nOf course, this really doesn’t matter because my EV wouldn’t charge during an outage, but it is annoying that I can’t disable it.
\nOverall, I am happy with my purchase, but it would be difficult for me to recommend it for most people from a cost-savings perspective.\nLike I mentioned above, this is only economically feasible for me because I was able to roll it into my 30 year mortgage with a low interest rate.
\n\n\n", "url": "https://jongleberry.com/posts/four-months-with-tesla-powerwall", "title": "Four Months With Tesla Powerwall", "summary": "How cost-effective is the Tesla Powerwall?", "date_modified": "2023-04-03T00:00:00.000Z", "date_published": "2023-04-03T00:00:00.000Z", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Ong", "url": "https://jongleberry.com" }, "tags": [ "personal-finance", "tesla", "solar-battery", "real-estate" ] }, { "id": "https://jongleberry.com/posts/one-year-with-arcadia-community-solar", "content_html": "Interested in buying a Tesla Powerwall? Use my referral code!
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About a year ago, I decided to spend $500 on Arcadia’s community solar program.\nThe primary reasons I did this were:
\nDuring this time, they promised $600 in savings over 10 years, which is a return of more than 2% annually.\nThis is pretty good considering I would be getting a few percent return from my credit card rewards and also earn minimum sign-up bonus.\nIf you need to manufacture spend, want to invest in renewable energy, and are okay with a long-term returns, Arcadia may be good option for you.
\n![\"Arcadia](\"https://jongleberry.com/blog-images/arcadia-account.png\")
Arcadia is a middleman for your utilities: you pay Arcadia, who then pays your utility.\nThis is especially a benefit for utilities that do not take utilities - I use Arcadia for my dad’s SCE account as SCE does not support autopay by credit card - I pay it through Arcadia with a Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card which earns 5x on utilities.\nThis more than covers the $5/month Arcadia charges to use its service, which essentially just buys Renewable Energy Credits.
\nOn top of just buyin RECs, Arcadia allows investing in community solar in certain areas.\nI was able to buy community solar in Massachusets last year, but community solar doesn’t seem to be available in California anymore.\nPreviously, I was able to see a nice dashboard of my community solar subscription, but they seem to have removed this dashboard as they no longer allow community solar subscriptions to California residents.\nHere’s what I see when I login to the community solar page on my account, even though I currently subscribe to community solar:
\n![\"Arcadia](\"https://jongleberry.com/blog-images/arcadia-community-solar.png\")
A benefit of being grandfathered in to the old community solar subscription is that I no longer have to pay the $5/month fee, so this is a big win for me, especially if I end up moving to a region serviced by SCE.
\nBecause the web page for community solar no longer works for me,\nI have to track my savings through the monthly email I receive from Arcadia.\nI’ve created a public spreadsheet to track my community solar savings.\nI am told that they are working on a new community solar dashboard.
\nOver the past year, I’ve saved $56.24 on my electricity bill.\nIf I extrapolate this to the full ten years of my subscription, that’s $562.40, just shy of the promised $600.\nGiven that I have an expected overall savings from my subscription and have helped a renewable energy project,\nI am pretty happy about my investment.
\n\n\nUse my referral link to sign up with Arcadia: https://www.arcadia.com/referral/?promo=jonathan1680
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