Will My Tesla Powerwall + Solar System Save Me in a Zombie Apocalypse?
Will My Tesla Powerwall + Solar System Save Me in a Zombie Apocalypse?
2019-03-18
what's up guys welcome back to Pauls
hardware today's video is a follow-up to
this video that I posted about three
months ago in December which was my
tesla powerwall and solar review where
my follow up on my tesla powerwall and
solar installation which has over 1
million views now so thanks to all you
guys who have checked out that video I
got a ton of awesome feedback from that
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description to learn more so for this
video I have scrolled through the more
than 4,000 comments left on that
original video and I'm going to be
answering as many of the print relevant
questions as I can today starting with
some actual feedback directly from Tesla
because I actually took a bunch of
questions and forward them to them and
Mark a Tesla lead systems engineer has
responded and given some direct feedback
on how the system actually works
especially if there is a zombie
apocalypse zombie apocalypse just being
my shorthand term before the internet
going out and the power grid going out
so if you guys didn't catch my video
series on this which started last year
there is a playlist linked down in the
video's description that goes through
all of them I try to give as much detail
as I could about the installation
process but a quick recap of how my
power system currently works I have a
solar grid that's up on my roof that
absorbs sunlight when it is sunny out
that can then be fed to power my home or
if there's more solar power being
generated than my home is using it will
store the excess power on my tesla
powerwall which is also attached to the
back of my house it is essentially a big
battery so it's gonna store the power
that's generated during the day and then
in the evening when the Sun Goes Down I
can draw power from the battery to power
my home if the battery gets down to 10%
in the current mode that I have it in it
will switch over and start drawing power
from the power grid because I'm still
connected to the power grid that's why
when the system was first installed it
was a fairly lengthy process because we
had to work with
Edinson to get everything tied into the
grid and they have to do inspections and
all that stuff to make sure it's done
properly so first question is about what
happens when the power goes out or the
internet goes out because we're tied
into the power grid for one and then I
also have a little black box that
connects to the Tesla gateway that sort
of monitors the power usage for the
entire home and that reports back to
Tesla and telemetry data so that they
can monitor my power usage as well as
make sure that the system is running at
all times now in my six months review
video I mentioned that if the power goes
out or if the internet goes out that the
system will automatically reset itself
and you might not actually be able to
use it
so to clarify three questions presented
to Tesla the first being if the grid
goes down are we have a power outage and
the internet is still working what
happens Tesla said when the Tesla
Gateway senses an out of spec grid
connection or basically things aren't
working properly with the power grid a
contactor in the Tesla gateway will open
up to separate your backed up loads from
the grid the Tesla gateway and battery
will form a micro grid to keep your
backed up loads powered the micro grid
will also provide the grid for your grid
tied solar inverter so it can continue
to operate when the Tesla gateway senses
a stable grid connection for five
consecutive minutes it will close the
contactor to restore grid power to your
backed up loads so the answer to
question one is yes if the power goes
out the system will separate itself from
the grid and will operate as its own
little micro grid powered from the
battery or powered from the solar to
keep your home powered even if there's a
note no power coming from the grid so
that's a good answer to question number
one
question two is going to be what if the
internet goes down but the grid is still
functioning and for Internet
connectivity my system actually has two
different ways of doing it one is
through that little black box
Tesla gateway and that is physically
connected to my router via an Ethernet
cable
second is that the Gateway itself has
two little knobs on top and that's
actually for a wireless 3G connection so
that's a failover if my home internet
goes out it has its own 3G connection
that it can connect to to communicate
back to Tesla the information that Tesla
so desperately needs so first answer
that question is if my home internet
goes down it will switch to the 3G
connection and it will communicate that
way and then every five minutes it will
check if my home network is back up and
then we'll switch back to that once it
is back up and running it will
prioritize an Ethernet connection
over Wi-Fi or 3G I don't have Wi-Fi so
it's gonna go with the Ethernet
connection and then it's the Ethernet
connection is not present or drops it
will prioritize the wireless connection
that has the strongest signal
so basically Ethernet or 3G in my
situation third part of this question is
the zombie apocalypse scenario what if
both the internet and the power grid go
down how will my home a power system
continue to operate and what happens if
it lasts more than 24 hours
mark was kind enough to humor my
hypothetical scenario here he says
during the zombie apocalypse the
contactor will open up as previously
mentioned and create a micro grid for
your backed up loads and solar inverter
it will also try to use the 3G
connection to communicate with Tesla
servers if the zombies have taken out
the grid and all communications the
system will run autonomously until the
battery is completely discharged the
battery will charge from excess solar
not consumed by the loads in your home
the solar panel should be cleaned of all
dust dirt and gore so they can provide
the most power possible so that's
obviously you know a risk/reward
scenario you go outside during a zombie
apocalypse because there's as much blood
splattered all over the solar grid gotta
clean that off but then you're attacked
by more zombies obviously you want to
use shotgun in that scenario but I'm
getting a bit out of range here in case
of Judgment Day Tesla is sorry the robot
overlords will take everything and maybe
we'll get to catch up in the matrix or
the Pens it's a little dark
to sum up though and to correct my
earlier video in the case of a zombie
apocalypse or alternatively just the
case of your power grid going out and
your internet connection going out the
system will continue to function there
are fail safes in place that will check
if either of those situations have been
resolved in order to turn things back on
but to sum up worst-case scenario zombie
apocalypse I will at least still have as
much power for my home as is provided by
the Sun provided of course they haven't
darkened the skies as well
I'd have some more answers from Tesla
these are some questions that I had a
few more questions from the comments
section in the last video and then
towards the end I have a few more
question from the comments section in
the last video that I'm going to answer
so stick around
first question though is about the
Internet connectivity of the system in
general we have the 3G connectivity
that's provided by the Gateway that's
external then we also have the direct
internet connection provided by the
solar city box internally my question
was if I didn't want to have that little
solar city black box connected to my
home router if I was freaked out about
it being an Internet of Things connected
device could I remove that and then when
the system just communicate via 3G
Marc's answer says the Tesla gateway or
the gray box with horns does have
built-in 3G if the solar city Gateway
stops reporting in we will be able to
monitor solar production using current
transformers that wrap around the wires
that tie your solar inverter into your
panel you can decide to use only the
connections the Tesla gateway has and
remove the solar city gateway from your
network the Tesla gateway in the Solar
City gateway send data to different
servers the servers do not communicate
with each other the gateways don't talk
to each other and losing data from the
solar city gateway will not affect the
data from the Tesla gateway the Tesla
gateway it looks at the system as a
whole including battery state charge
level voltages grid state voltage
frequency solar voltage solar current
and total energy produced and the solar
city gateway will look specifically at
the solar inverter which includes a
serial number the firmware version of
the voltage the current the total energy
produced etc the black solar city
gateway also allows us to send firmware
updates to your inverter
if you do decide to remove the black box
from your network I'm supposed to let
him know and he'll prevent unnecessary
phone calls and emails about it so the
short answer would be that yes you can
remove the black solar city gateway from
your network but that would prevent the
inverter from getting firmware updates
which may or may not be an issue in the
future fortunately though the Tesla
gateway is still providing most of the
data back so you still would be able to
monitor everything via the Tesla app
next up I wanted to give a quick plug to
CW ne 88 who did comment on my last
video and he's actually located in
Australia I believe but he's done a
bunch of very in-depth videos looking at
the telemetry data that Tesla sends back
to their servers as well as doing
various tests to see what happens if you
block that data being sent back to Tesla
what happens in that circumstance
actually discovered the system resetting
itself after a period of time when it's
not connected to the internet so my
question for Tesla here was that other
users have reported the system rebooting
if it goes more than 24 hours without a
connection to Tesla servers what are the
consequences and can you elaborate on
the other power states the system refers
to if the grid power connectivity or
data connectivity are lost
Mark's reply was that when no connection
is seen for two hours
all interfaces being the ethernet the
Wi-Fi and 3G are toggled but the system
will stay operational if there's no
connection for 24 hours and the system
isn't backing up loads the whole gateway
is reset this takes a few minutes and
while rebooting the system is not
available for backup and the summation
of this is that that's the first step in
troubleshooting for most technology
devices turn it off and then turn it
back on that's sort of an automated
function the system will do to try to
re-establish that connection
he also says if you decide to go
off-grid from Edison then your backed
uploads will stay powered as long as
your battery has charged and your solar
is operating it would be similar to how
you're operating now in self-consumption
mode but with more battery usage Tesla
is ok with this they actually have a few
customers who are either entirely
off-grid or just have very poor grid
conditions so they're sort of in a off
grid situation there are no negative
consequences for being at near
perpetually off-grid just losing
connection for an extended period is not
bad and then he has a few more notes
that were more specifically towards me
in my situation with my 3G connection on
the exterior box the whole idea behind
this is that Tesla servers are
monitoring your system and if something
goes wrong if suddenly your solar
generation drops off precipitously or
something like that they are going to
contact you and try to fix the situation
which I see you know some pros and cons
to obviously having that support of them
being able to tell you hey we think
there might be something wrong with your
system is good because that's not
something that you might immediately
know what's happening but of course the
flip side to that is that you have data
being sent to servers that are not in
your home so some people may or may not
be comfortable with that now something
that CW any 88 has done here because he
must be using PDF sense or something
like that to have a fair amount of
control over his home network is he's
blocked the tesla gateway from sending
that data back to tesla and that's how i
ran a few of his experience he found and
this is how he found that after 24 hours
the system will reset itself he has done
sort of an in-between situation where he
only provides it access
a short period of time every day so it
can send its telemetry data back and I
think that might be a good solution for
anyone who's seriously concerned about
data being sent from their home power
system back to Tesla servers but my
question was going to be how does this
affect your warranty so that was my next
question if I decided to block the
systems data connectivity to Tesla via
any method how would it affect the
system's operation other than the apt
not being able to show you the data
usage anymore cuz that's no longer an
Tesla servers and also very importantly
would this affect the warranty Marc's
answer was if the Tesla gateway was
connected to your home network and you
decided to block that traffic the
Gateway would attempt to use 3G if 3G
was unavailable Tesla would try to
assess and alleviate any concerns to
restore the network connection to the
Gateway so Tesla would reach out to you
and be like hey we noticed that we're
not getting any data from your system
anymore what's the deal if we're not
able to get the connection restored then
we can't send updates to the Tesla
gateway in batteries some updates make
drastic changes to behavior and
performance of the batteries such as
heat mode and the Gateway which has
communications failover and high latency
connection while there isn't a definite
duration set refusal to connect the
Tesla gateway to the Internet can
shorten the warranty extended to the
products refusals are handled on a
case-by-case basis so this to me says
they don't get people trying to do this
very often so if it does happen they
would get in touch with you if you
responded to them and be like nod I want
to I don't want to send you guys any
data they would handle on a case-by-case
basis I couldn't tell you exactly what
that means when it comes to shortening
the warranty period but it does appear
to be something that happens seldomly
enough that they're able to handle that
on an individual basis so long story
short there yes you could block the data
yes it might affect your warranty and
Tesla would get in touch with you to
tell you about that or at least talk it
over with you I suppose which doesn't
seem terribly unreasonable to me but
let's move on to some other comments
that I got these are all taken from the
six-month review video and this is just
an example of one of the many comments
pointing out that it's stupid
if the powerwall and solar grid doesn't
work if the internet goes out and I'm
sorry that I was wrong about that but
hopefully this video has helped correct
that and alleviate some people's
concerns next question is from Mustafa
Cole pan who says i spend 100 150
kilowatt hours per month you spent 50
kilowatt hours in
one day solar panels should be enough to
power our seven store apartment he lives
in Turkey so thank you Miss toffee for
commenting all the way from Turkey this
is again just one example of a comment
that came through many times people
completely thinking it's preposterous
and absurd that I was able to use that
much power in my day I want to point out
that the 50 kilowatt hour number was for
the worst day of the year this is a
worst case scenario this is super hot
outside
there's working in the home all day I
also want to point out I work from home
there's somebody here almost all the
time which means heating concerns
becoming heating and cooling concerns
become an issue so point is yes I
understand my usage is a bit high but
bear in mind it's not just like normal
home usage there's a business being run
out of here as well and when we're
talking about that number in particular
that was when it was really really hot
outside next up is SK metal 7 who says I
find it ironic that you would spend that
much money on this and then completely
ignore how inefficient your house is you
really should have had your house
properly insulated you'll see much
better ROI and your power wall will last
longer
first off sk metal 7 that is an improper
use of the word ironic but i don't want
to dwell on that i want to point out
this hidden video that no one has ever
seen before which was me having our
attic completely reinsulated with
blown-in insulation which happened about
six months or a year before our pyro
wall was installed I'm pointing this out
just to indicate to you guys that I am
aware that insulation is a concern when
it comes to heating and cooling a home
and that I've invested at least some
money so far that not is not to say that
this house is perfect by any stretch
again it was built in the 60s in
Southern California standards have
changed over time so I'm pretty sure
when it comes to stuff like a proper
vapor barrier as well as insulation in
the walls themselves yes there's more
that could be done but I do intend to
have that done in the future there's
actually some work coming up on my house
very soon so I'll possibly be looking
into having the injection foam done to
some of the walls to help insulate that
a little bit better but also on the plus
side I do have double pane windows on
all the windows that are here so that
helps a bit and then one of the other
things I need to do is go around and
check egress and ingress points where I
might not have proper weather stripping
going on so there's more to be done but
I have not been completely ignoring the
insulation factor of this so thank you
for your comment next up is glass
slinger whose
I did not see anywhere that you figured
the earnings you would make investing
this installation money for the same
length of time
he's estimating it to be $70,000 talking
about blue chip funds and could I make
even more if I was willing to take on
some more risk again there are many
other comments saying like I should have
just invested this money rather than
spending it on this solar panel I would
counter that by saying yes I could have
also gone to Las Vegas and thrown it all
on black
when it comes to risk there's risk and
just about any investment that you might
make and I'm not going to dive into my
opinions of how the stock market works
or anything like that but nobody can
guarantee me that if I was just to take
this money and plop it all into the
stock market that in ten or eleven years
I would suddenly be making my money back
there is also a risk that's plopping the
money into the solar and power grid that
I have just done might also backfire at
some point but I think there's a little
bit too much anticipated forward
projection going on and of what's gonna
happen in the future here and who knows
maybe the people who said I should
invest in the stock market are right
personally I'd rather have this
practical investment in actually taking
sunlight and using the power to power my
home versus dropping it onto the stock
market so that some financial in between
guys can bounce it around and somehow
create value out of that I don't know
I'm not a big fan of the stock market
but let's leave it at that
next question from grumpy Joe he just
wants to know what's my AC set to
because of course again heating and
cooling are gonna be some of the main
issues when it comes to actual power
usage in my home he works in the AC
business and we crazy Americans like to
turn our AC to 18 degrees Celsius
grandpa Joe I'm not gonna call you a
liar or anything because I'm sure there
are plenty of Americans who do do that
but just to clarify here our AC during
the summer is usually set to 81 degrees
Fahrenheit that is twenty-seven point
two degrees Celsius people tell me I'm
crazy all the time for having it that
warm but during the summer I live in
shorts and sandals and I'm just fine
with it also you know it's hot in
California but it's a dry heat it's
actually very true I got a few questions
like this one from Killa cam asking why
we didn't go with the Tesla solar roof
versus the Tesla solar panels I was
actually aware of the solar roof that
actually completely replaces your roof
with solar tiles
which is pretty cool but at least at the
time when I was doing the insulation
Tesla was taking a bunch of their solar
roof tiles that they were producing and
using them to make a massive solar array
on top of one of their factories
I'm sure stuff has changed in the past
year and a half or so but just at the
time the solar roof was less available
you have to remember I was first signing
up for this stuff in 2017 but that's why
speed-freak 3:08 - asks how much did
this raise the value of your house which
is a good question when you're talking
about an investment if I sell it
tomorrow would I lose anything and
there's a couple responses I've included
here ones from Derrick Cora who seems to
know maybe a little bit more about me
than this because he says he works for a
local residential solar installer and he
says that it most definitely would
that's somewhat anecdotal but it seems
to make sense to me the other follow-up
to that question was diesel Ram charger
who says it makes the house almost
impossible to sell because of the solar
contract and people don't want to assume
the liability that is possibly a concern
if you were financing your solar array
however I paid for everything upfront so
I'm not doing any financing that was
also part of the reason I did this when
you finance it you're paying interest
charges on that so it really cuts into
the amount of savings that you get for
your investment and that's why I did it
the way I did it that also sort of ties
in to this next question represented by
Kel'Thuzad who's saying that somehow tax
credits work
it means you would have he's talking
about the difference between a tax
credit and a write-off he's saying that
I would be writing off nine thousand
seven hundred and twenty eight dollars
so I have nine thousand seven hundred
twenty-eight dollars less taxable income
caldas are you were wrong I'm sorry but
you are wrong I just did my taxes I
would have owed X dollar amounts apply
the credit it is now that X dollar
amount - nine thousand seven hundred and
twenty eight dollars it is not as if I
earned that much less and now I'm being
taxed on that one much less money that
is how the tax credit works and also
pins a comment on that video from three
months ago just pointing out that the
federal tax credit in the US will be
phasing out it's 30 percent through 2019
in 2020 goes to 26 percent and 22
percent in 2021 and then 10 percent in
2020 - I have one more question here
that mark provided an answer to and it
was just one that was kind of baffling
me when they installed my new power
panel it's a 200 amp panel upgraded from
the old one
damn panel and then it's got two sub
breakers on it one is a 100 amp breaker
that goes over to the other gateway that
everything in the home is connected to
and that one is backed up by the power
wall and there's a second hundred amp
breaker and that one is actually
powering my AC units yet when I monitor
my power usage and the AC is on I can
tell based on the tesla app usage
information i can tell that my AC is
drawing power from the solar or the
power wall not from the grid I was just
curious how that worked
mark said that we have CTS or current
transformers at the main breaker which
is right at the top with the mode that
I'm currently using self-consumption the
system will use the energy stored in
your battery to power the home until the
reserve limit you set is reach with the
CTS place where they are that is the
logical demarcation point between your
home and the grid the system tries to
minimize import from the grid if you
lose grid power then the tesla gateway
becomes the demarcation point and
anything grid side of it becomes
unpowered so this to me means that while
the system has power from the grid it
wants to make sure that any massive
spikes that cause especially when the AC
is first turned on are able to be
covered by that so as long as I have
grid power it's going to draw everything
from the solar or the battery it's a
great power work to go out however then
it would switch the demarcation point
and I would basically have a mini grid
from the sub panel which means that if
the power were to go out or zombie
apocalypse mode I probably wouldn't be
able to run my AC and that pretty much
sums up the questions and answers that
I've gotten and received and hopefully
fed back to you guys and hopefully that
has answered some of your questions
especially if anyone is actually
considering investing in a system like
this for their home there were a lot of
other questions specifically talking
about different regions and a really big
part of the reason why I'm mainly
focused on here's my experience is
because there's so many variables that
go into that not just the cost of the
system itself but the cost of power
where you live whether you're using net
metering or not and of course the
weather in your area how many days of
some let you get in a year versus not so
for that reason anyone's decision to
invest in whether it's solar or power
wall or a combination of both should
greatly depend on your specific
situation
so please do a little bit more research
to find those variables out before you
go and invest thousands of dollars
the
I already pointed out by many people is
that Tesla had to contact Edison quite a
few times to like get permission to
operate and stuff in this installation
which is kind of funny you know the
history there between the two of them
but guys it's gonna wrap it up for this
video thank you so much for watching hit
the thumbs up button on your way out let
me know if you'd like to see another
follow up I know I haven't been doing
these too frequently it's been about
nine months since the system was turned
on now I'm considering doing a one-year
follow-up to this too so let me know in
the comments if you'd be interested in
that and if you guys have any other
questions that weren't answered in this
video leave those down there as well
thank you again for watching and we'll
see you guys next time
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