Tesla Powerwall 2 off grid help

[fixit1]

Hi, I need advice for my off grid home. My brother in law scored me a Tesla Powerwall 2 that he had left over from a project for a great price. I dont plan to hook it up until EVERYTHING else in my system is correct. Unfortunately I dont have the money for the rest of the Tesla set up, and to be honest I'm not even sure what that is! Tesla it tight lipped with their instructions and support, wanting a certified installer to do all of the work! And it seams like they are more geared to a grid tie.

My current system is a hodgepodge of solar panels and wind generators that go directly to six 12v AGM 100ah batteries for a bank. My charge controller dumps battery voltage at 14.7v down to 12.6v. The dump load is a 100 amp 12v water heater element so the cycle is quick. I have an old trace 220v inverter that works amazing but it outputs square wave and my dryer and pellet stove will not work with it. So I also have two 110v pure sine wave inverters that I switch over to when i dont need a ton of power. I power my shop with the 220v trace inverter.

I do not want to damage the Tesla, so its basically sitting in the inverter room until i get a plan. I know absolutely NOTHING about the powerwall other than its new and everyone tells me its what I need to power my home. Ok, so now what? What do I need for a charge controller and inverter? My neighbor told me that the powerwall has a charge controller and inverter inside of it. I'm lost.

I have $500 that I could put towards getting the Tesla Powerwall hooked up if that would do it?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
John

 

[MurphyGuy]

To my limited knowledge, the Tesla Powerwall can not be used off grid without the approval from Tesla.. and even then, I think they only allow it for short time periods.

Tesla has modeled a lot of their products after Apple.. Everything is special, everything is controlled by them, even after you purchase their product.

The power wall must be connected to the internet to communicate with Tesla or it shuts down.. that's what I understand anyhow.. In the case of someone inside a natural disaster zone, you would have to call Tesla to tell them to allow off-grid use for longer stretches.. Not sure how they handle that.

From my reading and investigation, the powerwall is not an off-grid solution.. even though it could be, Tesla won't allow it.. That's my understanding anyhow, and that's 4 years old now from when I was investigating them.

 

[wattmatters]

Repeated thread:

Tesla Powerwall 2 off grid help

Hi, I need advice for my off grid home. My brother in law scored me a Tesla Powerwall 2 that he had left over from a project for a great price. I dont plan to hook it up until EVERYTHING else in my system is correct. Unfortunately I dont have the money for the rest of the Tesla set up, and to...

diysolarforum.com

 

[Ampster]

I agree with @MurphyGuy and have seen the same opinions on the Teslamotorsclub forum. The Powerwall needs to be connected to the Tesla Cloud to operate, I assume your brother in law is not an installer?

 

[740GLE]

I say gut the power wall and harvest the cells. There’s gotta be huge value in the cells, just gotta add the BMS and inverter.

Also I’m guessing how tight Tesla controls their devices even if you tried to set up the power wall with an account they wouldn’t accept it.

 

[wattmatters]

I say gut the power wall and harvest the cells. There’s gotta be huge value in the cells, just gotta add the BMS and inverter.

It will be worth a lot more as a whole unit to someone who has an appropriate use case, e.g. a grid tied / data tied scenario. e.g. they have a Powerwall 2 and Gateway 2 and want to add a second PW2.

 

[740GLE]

Again I could be wrong, but I don’t think you can just hook up a powerwall and flip a switch and it’ll work. I think it’s linked to the “mothership” and if they don’t have it listed to an active to an account, it’ll be a shipping anchor at best.

There is a reason Tesla has such a closed door environment of “certified” installers they want to control of everything.

 

[MurphyGuy]

Again I could be wrong, but I don’t think you can just hook up a powerwall and flip a switch and it’ll work. I think it’s linked to the “mothership” and if they don’t have it listed to an active to an account, it’ll be a shipping anchor at best.

There is a reason Tesla has such a closed door environment of “certified” installers they want to control of everything.

Maybe, but if there's a will, there's a hack...

I wouldn't mind an opportunity to crack one open and poke around..