SkylineDrive
New Member
I live on a Caribbean island and have a completely off-grid (physically cut off from grid) Tesla powerwall setup with 3 powerwalls + gateway, fed by 20 x 300w solar panels with Enphase micro-inverters. And a diesel backup generator.
I've been using this system successfully since 2019 as my sole power source for a sizeable house with fridges, freezer, fans, water heaters, washer/dryer, etc (but no air conditioning) . It was professionally installed, and I don't want to touch it... So the Powerwalls are essentially my "grid". But of course no matter how careful I am with my usage, on gray days, the batteries don't fill up and eventually the generator kicks on, so I'd like to "expand" my setup.
I have tested (successfully) adding 8 solar panels with simple grid-tie micro-inverters (these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09N8T2741/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ), wiring them directly into separate circuits on a sub-panel with 15 amp fuses
Here's my question: So far, I've been careful that the grid-tie inverters don't generate more power than I'm using, because I'm afraid that if my power usage is less than the grid-tie inverters are generating, the excess power has nowhere to go and will fry my appliances, or - worse - will fry components of the Tesla system, even if it stays within the 15amp fuse capacity, . It went down once to 0 watt usage (from usually about 800-1000 watts baseline) already, and nothing happened. But I don't want to take a chance.... Does anybody know if this makes any sense and this could become an issue, or will the micro-inverters just stop producing, or somehow the Tesla Gateway "buffer" the extra power, or...?
I've been using this system successfully since 2019 as my sole power source for a sizeable house with fridges, freezer, fans, water heaters, washer/dryer, etc (but no air conditioning) . It was professionally installed, and I don't want to touch it... So the Powerwalls are essentially my "grid". But of course no matter how careful I am with my usage, on gray days, the batteries don't fill up and eventually the generator kicks on, so I'd like to "expand" my setup.
I have tested (successfully) adding 8 solar panels with simple grid-tie micro-inverters (these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09N8T2741/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ), wiring them directly into separate circuits on a sub-panel with 15 amp fuses
Here's my question: So far, I've been careful that the grid-tie inverters don't generate more power than I'm using, because I'm afraid that if my power usage is less than the grid-tie inverters are generating, the excess power has nowhere to go and will fry my appliances, or - worse - will fry components of the Tesla system, even if it stays within the 15amp fuse capacity, . It went down once to 0 watt usage (from usually about 800-1000 watts baseline) already, and nothing happened. But I don't want to take a chance.... Does anybody know if this makes any sense and this could become an issue, or will the micro-inverters just stop producing, or somehow the Tesla Gateway "buffer" the extra power, or...?
