Assuming energy costs are constant (no TOU pricing), is there any advantage to using energy during production vs overnight?
I recently purchased a Tesla and my two Bell curves, generation and production, are similar in size but shifted 12 hours from each other. I was wondering if there would be any advantage to schedule charging to kick off at 11am so they cancel out, vs my current setup of pushing to the grid and pulling back later.
Thanks!
If you’re on net metering without a TOU rate plan, then there is no financial advantage to trying to levelize your import/export. However, you may want to look into a TOU rate plan. I switched from a Tiered plan to a TOU plan and I’m saving an additional $25 per month on average. I did have about 12 months of historically data (5 minute resolution) to do a comparison with. My utility (SCE) also had a rate plan comparison tool that allowed me to pick the best TOU plan, they have many, for me. Since you say you’ve just recently purchased your Tesla, it may be a bit harder for you to make a good comparison as you don’t have much data to compare.
How much is your FIT (feed-in tarrif)?
If FIT less than cost of power, then charge whilst producing.
If FIT larger than cost of power, then charge overnight…
If you don’t have a battery system to store your own excess energy you should use as much of the power you produce while it is being produced since you don’t have to pay for it. Because you use “free power” while it is available you won’t use the expensive power while you system is not producing. That’s a double savings.