Joining the Renewable Heating Hub forums is completely free and only takes a minute. By registering you’ll be able to ask questions, join discussions, follow topics you’re interested in, bookmark useful threads and receive notifications when someone replies. Non-registered members also do not have access to our AI features. When choosing your username, please note that it cannot be changed later, so we recommend avoiding brand or product names. Before registering, please take a moment to read the Forum Rules & Terms of Use so we can keep the community helpful, respectful and informative for everyone. Thanks for joining!
Tesla Battery Drain
My newly installed Tesla Powerwall 3 and Gateway. The battery slowly drains over the day despite there been lots of solar production and minimal draw by the home.
Is this normal?
2024 build bungalow, Southern England, 179 m2, 14w/m2
Underfloor heating, fully open
Vaillant aroTHERM plus 3.5kW
50 litre volumiser
3.6KW solar panels
Tesla 13.5kw Powerwall
Something sounds odd there; if you have solar power charging the PW3 and minimal consumption, the battery ought to charge to (and hold) a full charge until the available solar energy drops below the level of your consumption. At this point, you might well start using the charged PW3’s energy. There are many settings in the Tesla app to control how your Tesla kit behaves; you may care to have a look at these settings to ascertain what is happening. Regards, Toodles.
Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.
2024 build bungalow, Southern England, 179 m2, 14w/m2
Underfloor heating, fully open
Vaillant aroTHERM plus 3.5kW
50 litre volumiser
3.6KW solar panels
Tesla 13.5kw Powerwall
Are you exporting the solar energy your panels produce? Is your PW set to export from the battery? Regards, Toodles.
Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.
Posted by: @toodlesAre you exporting the solar energy your panels produce? Is your PW set to export from the battery? Regards, Toodles.
Yes I believe so.
2024 build bungalow, Southern England, 179 m2, 14w/m2
Underfloor heating, fully open
Vaillant aroTHERM plus 3.5kW
50 litre volumiser
3.6KW solar panels
Tesla 13.5kw Powerwall
@trebor12345 I don't have a Tesla, but my Growatt inverter consumes about 30 wH on standby mode. So, over 5 hours it loses about 1%. In winter, this wouldn't be obvious as our heat pumps are constantly pulling from the batteries and the standby consumption is masked. But, in the summer it's clearly visible. I am not sure how much it's going down each hour in your case as I can't read the image clearly as I am on my tablet and not on a laptop. But this could be one explanation as to why.
16 * 435 watts PV
13 kWh Growatt battery
1 EV - Mercedes EQB
6 kW Aira Heat Pump
Bosch Induction Hob
Pod Point Solo 3 charger
@trebor12345 On the home screen of the Tesla app, select the ‘Energy’ option under the picture of the house. You will then have four options, Home, Powerwall, Solar and Grid. At the top right, you will be able to select the time period in which you are interested, Day, Month, Year, Lifetime or Custom. Choose whichever you are interested in and then tap one of the four icons at the bottom for Home, Powerwall etc. At this point you will be able to see the ins and outs and times of power flow. The resolution is rather low but you should be able to determine within an hour or two and within a kWh for the flows. Regards, Toodles.
Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.
So this is for today. The blue line shows the drain to the house over the day. As the sun has gone down the consumption has increased. But during the day there is a steady flow of 100 watts (some variation on this). Interesting to note that the drain stops between 12 and 4, no reason why. other days show a similar picture, but different times. Better image attached.
2024 build bungalow, Southern England, 179 m2, 14w/m2
Underfloor heating, fully open
Vaillant aroTHERM plus 3.5kW
50 litre volumiser
3.6KW solar panels
Tesla 13.5kw Powerwall
Posted by: @chandykris@trebor12345 I don't have a Tesla, but my Growatt inverter consumes about 30 wH on standby mode. So, over 5 hours it loses about 1%. In winter, this wouldn't be obvious as our heat pumps are constantly pulling from the batteries and the standby consumption is masked. But, in the summer it's clearly visible. I am not sure how much it's going down each hour in your case as I can't read the image clearly as I am on my tablet and not on a laptop. But this could be one explanation as to why.
I have attached a better image from today which shows this drain on the battery. Over the day I am losing at least 20% (2kw) which is quite significant (during solar production). I can live with the drain, but the battery should be topped up from solar in the day, which its not. This is Ok for summer, but winter it's more of an issue when you what the max power available.
2024 build bungalow, Southern England, 179 m2, 14w/m2
Underfloor heating, fully open
Vaillant aroTHERM plus 3.5kW
50 litre volumiser
3.6KW solar panels
Tesla 13.5kw Powerwall
@trebor12345 20% does sound excessive. Gemini suggests daily standby consumption of around 500 Wh to 800 Wh for a Powerwall, so yours seems to be much more than that. My Growatt inverter is setup to start charging if the SoC goes below 95%, so yours not charging from solar seems odd too. At least you have spotted the issue in the summer months, else the drain would have hidden behind house load consumption from the battery. Hope your installer can give a reasonable explanation and sorts this out.
16 * 435 watts PV
13 kWh Growatt battery
1 EV - Mercedes EQB
6 kW Aira Heat Pump
Bosch Induction Hob
Pod Point Solo 3 charger
@trebor12345 Try opening the settings window and then ‘Operational Mode’, at the moment, you are set on ‘Savings’ - swap over to ‘Self-Powered’ mode which should ensure the solar energy when available goes to the battery first and export only when the battery is full or when the Tesla software dictates as it is conserving battery longevity. Once the battery is full, the solar should continue to supply house needs and then export any surplus. Regards, Toodles.
Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.
Posted by: @toodles@trebor12345 Try opening the settings window and then ‘Operational Mode’, at the moment, you are set on ‘Savings’ - swap over to ‘Self-Powered’ mode which should ensure the solar energy when available goes to the battery first and export only when the battery is full or when the Tesla software dictates as it is conserving battery longevity. Once the battery is full, the solar should continue to supply house needs and then export any surplus. Regards, Toodles.
Switching from Savings to Self Powered, stops the drain on the battery and keeps it at 100% during the day so thats a result. However, this morning the battery didn't charge overnight!! As of 8am it's now charging from the solar.
I need the battery to charge overnight at the cheap rate (9p), so I am having to go back to the other setting.
Any other thoughts?
2024 build bungalow, Southern England, 179 m2, 14w/m2
Underfloor heating, fully open
Vaillant aroTHERM plus 3.5kW
50 litre volumiser
3.6KW solar panels
Tesla 13.5kw Powerwall
- 27 Forums
- 2,745 Topics
- 64.5 K Posts
- 668 Online
- 7,149 Members
Join Us!
Installer Finder
Degrees of Separation
Latest Posts
-
RE: Who's your electricity provider and what's your tariff?
@toodles I invested on Miele a pair of frodge frozor wh...
By AgentGeorge , 47 minutes ago
-
RE: Flushing system, cleaning and inhibitor
Flush and fill all complete. Octopus kindly gave us a...
By Old_Scientist , 57 minutes ago
-
RE: Wood burner with ASHP - direct air?
For what it's worth I installed a wood burner in this o...
By BlizzardGreen , 2 hours ago
-
@editor Thanks for your response and recommendations. ...
By DavidB , 9 hours ago
-
RE: Do I add Air Con or MVHR to existing A2W ASHP?
I think I saw a diagram for an exhaust air dhw tank wit...
By JamesPa , 23 hours ago
-
RE: Indevolt Batteries UK Support & Info Thread
Thanks, however that's an answer to a subtly different ...
By JamesPa , 3 days ago
-
RE: Solar Power Output – Let’s Compare Generation Figures
@toodles Such elegant symmetry. look at my lumpy bag of...
By Papahuhu , 4 days ago
-
RE: PV and battery long payback - sense check query
Quite probably not, but you can get a 32A relay and a S...
By JamesPa , 4 days ago
-
RE: Starting Our Heat Pump Journey: 1962 build 3 bed detached house
@ian-s Look forward to making contact soon! Regards, To...
By Toodles , 4 days ago
-
I don't notice mine defrosting, and most of the time Im...
By JamesPa , 5 days ago
-
RE: Do I need to change the control unit when replacing my Ecodan Air Source Heat Pump
Kind of you, @calumm, but it was @f1p who did the heavy...
By Majordennisbloodnok , 5 days ago
-
RE: Electricity price predictions
2. As EV ownershp increases it'll certainly increase de...
By EtchedPixels , 6 days ago











