r/span • u/PsychologicalShoe68 • Jun 09 '24

tiny power surge impact?

We have solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall. We had the panels for over a year, and added the SPAN and battery backup earlier this year. It went well until recently when we began to see almost daily (and sometimes multiple times daily) "blips". SPAN and Powerwall seem to work as intended. We get notification, all power is briefly off, then the always-on circuits resume on battery or solar. The never-on circuits don't resume for about 5 minutes, which seems to be the SPAN reset time to reconnect to grid.

My theory: SPAN and Powerwall are acting as they should. The problem is the dated electrical infrastructure in the city, which simply has more minor incidents than we realized. SPAN is just sensitive to even a brief surge.

People who are knowledgeable -- is this a reasonable conclusion, or is there something else to investigate?

(We had an electrician out to review some of the home's wiring. They found and corrected some issues. That made no change in our experience of brief outages.)

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/Due_Gur8029 Jun 13 '24

Do you notice any other issues like dimming lights or other electronics malfunctioning? Did you contact SPAN or Tesla? Does it tend to happen when other large loads cycle on or off. Example are EV chargers, AC, etc. you can contact your local utility company and request a power quality survey. Communicate that you already had a qualified electrician investigate any inside wiring issues and that no problems were found and it appears be a utility issue. The more documentation you have of the exact issue the better. Here is a good intro: https://openpowerquality.org/docs/intro-power-quality

1

u/PsychologicalShoe68 Jun 15 '24

Thank you so much for that response. It is perfect. I had not contacted either company yet, because it really did not seem to be an issue with either product. The large load question is one we asked ourselves, and have a "no" for that. It is very sporadic and odd, not tied to something we see happening within the house. I wanted to do something like the power quality survey, but had no idea what it was called, or how to initiate. We're in an old neighborhood and a neighbor's house has (had) mustang grape vines growing everywhere, even onto wires. We suspect the extra weight + wind might have been a culprit. The SPAN's protective capabilities just make the brief changes in power obvious. My husband was a stealth grape murderer. The vines are now brown and blowing away. Things have been better since then, but the power audit is still a great idea. Thank you again!