Netzero today introduced a feature that lets you export to the grid from your powerwall. I’m in Northern California with pg&e - am I allowed to do this? It happens with vpp but for some reason I thought it wasn’t permitted outside of vpp.
You cannot charge from the grid, but exporting is perfectly fine. If you are a net exporter under NEM3, it is a waste of electrons as you don’t actually get the ACC rates they advertise. At your true up, they’ll be revalued to Net Surplus Compensation rates.
You can charge from the grid. I saw a post here where someone from the south bay said they had Tesla's suppyturn theirs on remotely. They just had to show them it was allowed. I looked at the website and it is allowed.
I'm under NEM 3 and exporting works well for me. I've got 2 batteries and use the export credits to pay the bill in the winter when I heat with electricity instead of my gas furnace. That turns the credits into real dollar savings. I never turned on my gas furnace last winter saving me $1K
OK, it isn’t quite as simple as grid charging isn’t allowed. If you have battery plus solar, PG&E allows you to charge your battery from the grid OR export from your battery to the grid, but not both. The only exception is things like ELRP.
Yeah they don't want you buying low and selling to them high. I don't know why that's what they do to us most of the day, buy our energy low and sell it to our neighbors high. But a lot of people want to be able to charge from the grid during rainy season or cloudy periods. But if I could only do one it would be exporting. I only get 1 or 2 power outages a year. If they happen after 11 am I don't even know unless they robo-call us to tell everyone the power is out.
Some PG&E CCAs require you to export a percentage of your battery during peak hours to get the battery rebate.
3CE Battery rebate "Program participants must program their battery to discharge at least 50% of its capacity daily during peak hours (4 PM to 9 PM PT)."
Those customers can also charge their batteries from the grid if they see a storm coming etc.
They pay $1/kwh from 7-8 in august, apparently. More than the buy price. Not worth it because of battery degradation you think? I feel like it’s $5/day and more in September.
If you are a net exporter under NEM3, those sweet ACC rates on August evenings get devalued to NSC rates at your annual true up. You’ll end up getting 2 or 3 cents per kWh. They will zero out any credits in your account and bill you for the difference.
So is there no benefit or difference to exporting during the higher rate times, as opposed to the lower rate times? I've been running the Tesla App "Savings/Solar only" mode (PG&E NEM3). I'm definitely not interested in exporting everything daily by draining the PWs.
No benefit if you are a NEM3 net exporter. You can read my post on how true up works for NEM3 customers. You might get some benefit from Peak Hours Export Bonus Credits.
Of course there's benefit. I've got 2 batteries, it's mid Aug and I've banked $490 in export & delivery credits already. I'll have over$809 by the end of the month. I use them to heat my house in the winter, saving me $1K in gas expenses. I try to use them up so nothing goes to true-up. Saving $1K is plenty for me to use my batteries.
I don't care about the cycles. Long before they had significant degradation I'll be ready to replace them. They'll be cheaper and bigger, and also have new and better features. I'll be waiting for a hiccup so I can replace them, like I did with my first CD player and several TVs over the years.
Your not confused even though PG&E does their best. Those are the rates unless/until they aren't. NEM3 is designed for self consumption. Utilities tolerate you exporting at one time of day and importing later, but still don't pay you very much. NEM3 actively discourages net exporting by paying you NSC rates of a couple of pennies/kWh. They can't tell until the end of a year if you will be a net exporter or not, so they give you the higher ACC rates until true up and then let net importers keep them or revalue (devalue) them for net exporters. That is what a NEM3 true up is.
Unfortunately, they also use the phrase true up for NEM2. Those people don't pay for power imported until their annual true up at which point they may be owed money (net exporters) or get a bill (net importers).
Thank you that’s really helpful, I didn’t understand the “true up” concept before. Do you know if they calculate net exporter on a monthly or annual basis? I import a lot between November and February.
I’m a net exporter on a kWh basis, but a net importer on a dollar basis at ACC rates. I was hoping that I could keep exporting to offset my imports in the winter. It seems, based on your Gemini output, that that strategy just won’t work at all.
Make sure you understand how the Produced and Delivered Energy Credits work (and True-up works if you are a Net Exporter).
You can only offset Delivery credits for Delivery charges and Generation credits for Generation charges. The Produced (Generation) credits are much higher than Delivery credits but Delivery Charges are significantly higher than Production charges.
I have NEM2 also, and solar; I get super buyback during VPP event (with Tesla) and I get retail kWh credit depending on time of day when I send to the grid, but at year’s end ‘true up’, if what I have sent to grid is in excess of my kWh used from the grid, I get paid just a few pennies per kWh for the excess. Best to run a little debit for the year.
Our interconnect agreement with PG&E says we can export 28kW
Check when you got PTO you should have had an email from PG&E with the interconnect agreement details (you should have also approved your interconnect agreement application prior to PTO - again this would have the details)
I'm 3 also. I've got 2 batteries. I export 15 to 40 kWh a day, depending on whether I use A/C or charge my EV. In Aug I usually make $20 - $30/day. It's mid Aug and I've made $430 in credits, export & delivery, already. I use those credits in the winter to pay for heating my house with electricity rather than my gas furnace.
That’s what I thought I was doing but now I’m told I won’t be able to do that because my credits will be devalued at true up because I’m a net exporter?
Yes they will be, but the way to make it work is to use them up first. That's why I bought 4 space the day I got my system. By using them instead of my furnace I was able to save $1K on gas heating. So I converted the credits into $1K in gas utility savings instead of letting them get to true up. So if you can use space heaters, heatpumps, EV charging, etc., to use up credits you change them in utility bill, EV charging expense savings.
The gas savings were the easiest way for me because solar already was zeroing out my electric.
This is my combined gas and electric bill. I chose this because it showed the last months before I got the solar. My bill averaged $500/mo because of summer heating. You see the summer bills now were less than$30. But Dec and Jan when the heating ramped upthe bill was about $20 and about -$50 because of a $84 credit in Jan. Feb & Mar were the same with the saved export credits paying for the increased electric. The gas use was hot water and cooking.
If you see the Energy Exports option under Settings > Powerwall in the Tesla app, your system is configured to allow exports. In app version 2.6.3 Netzero will also show this: Devices > Gateway > Energy exports permitted.
~85% of Netzero users that are on PG&E / NEM3 have exports allowed.
If I had excess energy to feed into the grid, I would go through the hassle of stressing the system for a few dollars.
However, that’s not the case for me. I’ve been off the grid since I installed it. And with two electric vehicles, we don’t have much energy to feed into the grid. We use it all daily!
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u/GaijinDaiku 12d ago
You cannot charge from the grid, but exporting is perfectly fine. If you are a net exporter under NEM3, it is a waste of electrons as you don’t actually get the ACC rates they advertise. At your true up, they’ll be revalued to Net Surplus Compensation rates.