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Solar Production dropped by over half!

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They came by today. The guy was here for about an hour and a half and said there was an issue with one of the switches for the panels on top of the garage. So they ordered the part (which is manufactured by tesla). I asked how long that would take....but he wasn't sure. he said didn't think it would be long because they manufacture the part themselves.

The saga continues...
 
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I heard from Tesla yesterday that I needed to schedule service, first available is Sept 18 which I took.

Here's a recap of my situation for comparison:
~Aug 1 - noticed 50% loss of production for the past week, called support who observed the issue, had me restart PWs, didn't work, they escalated to Level 2 support. Was given an estimate of 10-15 business days for L2 support to investigate.
Aug 24 - finally heard from Tesla that I needed to schedule service. No other info given about whether anything was looked at.
Aug 25 - I called to schedule, took first available appt of Sept 18

will keep updating when things change..


~
 
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How do you estimate how much energy should be produced per panel? I am kicking myself for not researching this deeper before installing. My Q-cell 400W panel with IQ8M microinverter is producing only 2.2KWh per day. It is a 400W panel and there is 10 hours of sun these days in the Bay area. I have no shading issues but my panel is west facing. My theoretical max should be 400W * 10h = 4KWh but with panel facing west tilt 18degree azimuth 270 I am getting only 55% of max. Sounds kind of low. Am I missing something? Is there some problem with the installation?
 
How do you estimate how much energy should be produced per panel? I am kicking myself for not researching this deeper before installing. My Q-cell 400W panel with IQ8M microinverter is producing only 2.2KWh per day. It is a 400W panel and there is 10 hours of sun these days in the Bay area. I have no shading issues but my panel is west facing. My theoretical max should be 400W * 10h = 4KWh but with panel facing west tilt 18degree azimuth 270 I am getting only 55% of max. Sounds kind of low. Am I missing something? Is there some problem with the installation?
You can use PVWatts to estimate what it should produce.


If I enter a roof mounted west facing 400W panel with a 20° tilt in the Bay Area (Peninsula) it estimates 67 kWh for the month of August which is about a 2.16 kWh/day average. I left all the other parameters to their default value.
 
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My theoretical max should be 400W * 10h = 4KWh but with panel facing west tilt 18degree azimuth 270 I am getting only 55% of max. Sounds kind of low. Am I missing something?
You're missing the daily rotation of the earth that causes the sun to move across the sky. A 400W solar panel will only produce its maximum power at ideal conditions and the sun is perpendicular to it.
 
How do you estimate how much energy should be produced per panel? I am kicking myself for not researching this deeper before installing. My Q-cell 400W panel with IQ8M microinverter is producing only 2.2KWh per day. It is a 400W panel and there is 10 hours of sun these days in the Bay area. I have no shading issues but my panel is west facing. My theoretical max should be 400W * 10h = 4KWh but with panel facing west tilt 18degree azimuth 270 I am getting only 55% of max. Sounds kind of low. Am I missing something? Is there some problem with the installation?
Just checked to specs on that inverter. Max power is 300W output.
Monterey has 13 hours of daylight .
Production of an inverter is a bell curve at ideal input and output.
 
As someone who live just North of you in Lafayette and is (hopefully) soon to get PTO from Xcel to turn things on, thanks for posting your play-by-play. Kinda discouraging that it is taking that long ...

Just FYI. I am looking to expand my system because when it was initially designed, I did not have 2 evs. So it was designed for a much smaller usage house. I asked for a quote from tesla and from sunrun. Sunrun came by and gave me a quote. 3.2 kw unit for about 10.2k. Telsa's 4.05 kw unit is around 12k. One of the big difference here is that sunrun will provide inverters per panel so i can see the production by each panel. And unlike the situation that I'm in today where a whole set of 8 panels went out because of a switch, the individual inverters will only impact one panel at a time. Also its nice to have a direct contact with a person, their phone number and someone i can text directly. I haven't decided which one to go with as i'm still waiting for tesla to provide me the details of how they would go about expanding the system but i'm leaning sunrun atm. The guy i'm working with is VERY responsive. he calls within 5 mins of texting him.
 
The best thing to do in this case is hire a thermal drone inspection. It will quickly tell you what the panel problem is. I do thermal inspections.
My installer finally managed to get the CTs working and finally the enphase app is making some sense. The 29 panel system produced 63KwH today and also matched the PVWatts number. So all good for now.
 
My installer finally managed to get the CTs working and finally the enphase app is making some sense. The 29 panel system produced 63KwH today and also matched the PVWatts number. So all good for now.
Any feedback from the installer what was the issue, reverse wiring perhaps?
My older Enphase system does not rely on CTs as the inverters are sending data to the Enphase gateway then through powerline directly to the router and to Emphases.
My Tesla gateway does need a CT.
Am surprised your Enphase inverters don't send the raw data to Enphase.
 
How do you log in to inverter other than with the Tesla app? I have the powerwall+ . Can I do that? Thanks
They finally believed that there is a reduction in production even though no error messages of any kind on app. They first scheduled a technician to come out Aug. 31, but then someone called and said they need a full crew and pushed back until October 11. Very disappointed. Going through hot summer a/c usage with only half the solar production. Also still don’t have PTO, even though last inspection was in March.