Submitted by Horrible_eggplant t3_10z8ut0 in vermont
Has anyone here had the Tesla Powerwall installed through GMP? I’m wondering how you felt/feel about the lease agreement and how you feel about the battery overall. Currently filling out the contract but there are some things I’m feeling a little iffy about and was hoping to get others thoughts!
Same here, first round. Underground power so we only lose grid power when someone hits a utility pole. This happens about every other year. Also have the solar city/ tesla panels and it’s been a great thing. Cost is down and all is good. I do have a broken panel from the big blower back in December.
Same here. If I turn off my minisplit heat pump, I get 2 days. If I leave it going, I can drain the batteries in less than half a day.
I've has them since late 2018, and they've covered everything so far.
Also curious! Definitely the cheapest way to get a battery install in the short term, but you don’t own it at the end of the ten year term and there’s no option to buy (at least from my reading of the lease terms). Over the longer term, financing an install from somewhere else and taking the GMP rebates seems like it could be a better deal…but maybe others have better insight on this?
> there’s no option to buy
I think they might just let us keep them. I was lead to believe that could happen when talking to HQ years back. It would cost them way more to have a crew come out and remove it and restore the wiring as it was. You might find if we sign a waiver or something they could just leave them in place. Crossing my fingers anyways.
In 10 years there will be a market to upcycle/recycle old batteries.
Had our unit about 5 years now so who knows. I bet most people want it gone I would like to tinker with it though. Even if the batts were pretty diminished it would serve me well. It's the hour here and there when power goes out that it's needed to keep my boiler pumps and other stuff running. I have a genny for long outages.
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We got one installed maybe 15 months ago. When it works it’s been great, but we’ve had Tesla out twice from the Albany office for repairs and it’s a pain scheduling with them and following up. Even then, having the batteries has made power outages comfortable. GMP can draw power from the batteries during normal operation, but when a storm is coming it goes into storm mode and stays fully charged just in case of an outage. I think they’ve been worth it.
Willing to share what the repairs were about? As a Powerwall owner I am kinda curious. Mine has been perfect although they did remotely up the frequency a bit. I had a motor starting issue but that took care of it. Large pellet boiler auger motor 240v.
I’d like to know more too. We went with Suncommon, partly because they wouldn’t install a single powerwall due to an issue that sounds like that. Real-Pierre, do you have a single?
Yup just the single. They got a bit pissy I didn't want the double although the single was the original plan they tried last min to make me have two. Probably should have went for it it was only 15 a month per unit way back then. Does a great job and I have a large diesel genny if that goes dead.
As far as I understand it, one time involved a firmware update that had to be forced from the house (and that they didn’t feel comfortable walking me through) and the second time involved replacing the switch that detects loss of power from the utility and automatically switches the house to the batteries. They did work both inside and outside near the meter for that one.
Gotcha ya that switch is called the gateway or more like the brain really and NOT cheap!. It has a cellular connection as well as wifi and ethernet. As it's leased some options are N/A but you can log into it pretty easy just type it's ip and enter your tesla password and you can see real time usage and as it stays on the LAN you can still use it that way if your internet is out unlike the app.
https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/connecting-network
We got the two-battery unit in the first round, also. Our power had been getting pretty sketchy in the past several years. Nothing major, just lots of brief outages. We've had 37 events since Oct 2019, the longest 3 hours and a total of 19 hours. No problems, either.
We got in the first pilot, paid the upfront fee rather than leasing, and love it. Much better than a generator.
Ours is great and we get a $5 rebate for selling back to GMP every month. Only time I know our power is out is when I hear the neighbors’ genies kick in. We get about three days if we’re careful with two batteries.
I have two powerwall batteries installed and they have been seamless for the power outages we have experienced. This last storm they provided electricity for the entire house for the duration of the outage. (Fifteen hours). They ran the outdoor hot tub, two refrigerators, a freezer, the heat and lights and media. At $15 per month for each battery over the ten year lifespan it will be several thousand dollars less than installing a generator. Also there is no maintenance on the batteries. So far very happy with them.
We had ours installed in 2019 and it has been a great addition to our home solar (Suncommon). GMP installs it for free and you get on demand backup power with no interruption when the service goes out. We live in Colchester so its rarely out for more than 12 hours , but the two batteries we have totally cover all of our needs for about 24 hours (within reason). GMP makes a point not to draw them down leading up to storms where a power outage is more likely so its the perfect alternative to a generator. So overall, a great experience.
Its interesting to watch how GMP draws the power from them to balance peak demand (primarily in the summer). They then fill them back up when demand is not high. It seems too good a deal to be true but it really is as advertised.
Ours is great and we get a $5 rebate for selling back to GMP every month. Only time I know our power is out is when I hear the neighbors’ genies kick in. We get about three days if we’re careful with two batteries.
Ours is great and we get a $5 rebate for selling back to GMP every month. Only time I know our power is out is when I hear the neighbors’ genies kick in. We get about three days if we’re careful with two batteries.
We got in the first pilot, paid the upfront fee rather than leasing, and love it. Much better than a generator.
We got in the first pilot, paid the upfront fee rather than leasing, and love it. Much better than a generator.
Ours is great and we get a $5 rebate for selling back to GMP every month. Only time I know our power is out is when I hear the neighbors’ genies kick in. We get about three days if we’re careful with two batteries.
Ours is great and we get a $5 rebate for selling back to GMP every month. Only time I know our power is out is when I hear the neighbors’ genies kick in. We get about three days if we’re careful with two batteries.
Ours is great and we get a $5 rebate for selling back to GMP every month. Only time I know our power is out is when I hear the neighbors’ genies kick in. We get about three days if we’re careful with two batteries.
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Do you have specific questions?
I have 2 through the initial offering from GMP which was more affordable IMO. I haven’t had any issues with the battery operating. I did have a couple issue where it wouldn’t connect to my WiFi so I could see what was going on in the Tesla app but that was awhile ago. Mine were installed in early June 2020.
We have one. For the January billing cycle, it used 42kwh to recharge after power was pulled to the grid (Tesla app number). That amount was deducted from our usage. We “sold back” 33kwh (GMP app number). The only deductions on the bill are the $2.00 Tesla efficiency credit thats on every bill. 76Kw is basically the difference between our usage amount and what the bill says we used, so there’s that.
The system is in the basement, tucked away in the corner. “They” came in, took some measurements and photos of the wall, path to the area, driveway, etc… etc… Had me point out all the things we wanted to stay on and what was good to be off. A few months later, 3 fellas showed up, went down to the basement and worked their magic. When they were done, one guy walked me through everything. They ended up adding 3 panels next to the main panel. Two deal directly with the power wall. The third was a sub panel that holds everything they pulled from “inside” the power loop, baseboard heaters, heat pumps, stuff like that. The install process, from them showing up with the boxes to leaving was a whole afternoon. The folks were all licensed electricians from Burlington (I’m in Quechee), and the work they did was tight and up to code.
Last time the power went out, the big ice storm, we turned off and unplugged everything except the two 11w LED lights in the room with our wood stove. The water pump worked, but the water heater is on a separate power system (GMP charges 0.08 less per kwh for the water heater if you let em turn it off a few hours per day) so we had running water. Our only extraneous power was two ipads and two cell phones. Our total power consumption per day was down to around 1.5kw. That number is the one you need to know if you want to figure out how long the batteries last.
All said and down, we plan for 4 days of off grid power. We “can” stretch it out by unplugging the basement freezer, lowering the pump pressure on the well and such, but we’re not gonna do that unless GMP has projected more than 4 days repair.
We’ve had to schedule a service call. No idea why, just started getting emails and text messages from the automated system saying we needed it. I can tell ya more after March 1st.
We did opt to pay for the system up front vs stretching out the bill. We did ask about adding batteries after the Jan power outage, but GMP’s limit is two and they don’t seem amenable to me adding batteries they didn’t provide. Since Tesla stopped selling the systems independently (you have to buy the solar panels now to get the batteries), it’s not an issue. The installer said GMP didn’t have plans to recover the powerwalls, but that was a few years ago and the installers didn’t work for GMP so take it for what it’s worth.
Overall, if I had to do it again, and had the means, I’d definitely go with two batteries.
Thanks, everyone! This is really helpful information and I think we’ll probably go for it. One thing I’m unsure of is the actual power requirements. I did the site survey via pictures and they haven’t said anything regarding upgrades to service so I think we’re just going to give it a shot and see what happens. Not really in a place to do a bunch of upgrades so hopefully that’s not the case! In any case, thank you all again!
I was in the first round several years ago and was told that after 10 years, I had the option to keep them for an additional 5. Do they still do this?
GrilledSpamSteaks t1_j82ekn4 wrote
We got in in the first round they offered. Had 2 batteries installed and so far so good. During the 3 day power outage last month, we had lights, water and fridge power the whole time. With conservative use and all 220v lines outside of the loop, we have 5 days of power with the walls. Remember they are 13kw batteries each, so it’s easy enough to drain them pretty quick.