observations on the Tesla PowerWall

Interesting observations about the Tesla Powerwall:
The smoke and ash from the wildfires last summer reduced the solar panels' efficiency dramatically. I hosed them down with water after the air cleared, and they improved considerably, but still not back up to new condition. I suppose I could hire someone to clean them, but I don't think I need to. Now that the rains have come, they are doing pretty well, considering the season.

Sep 2019 produced 1,240 kWh, Sep 2020 produced 978 kWhBecause we are in the shade most of the time from October to February the panels only generate a few kWh per day (photo).
An interesting side effect is that we get more power on cloudy and foggy days than on clear days. I suppose this is due to the sun reflecting and refracting from the clouds.

I've set my battery Reserve to 75% for these low-production months. That should last about 16 hours. Probably that's excessive, based on the outages I've had so far, but better safe than sorry.

I joined the OhmConnect effort to reduce the need for "dirty" power production. So when I get a request to save energy, I go full battery for the hour or two. I "game" the system by resetting the Customize to Cost Saving, Reserve down to 50% just before and during the hour or two and reset to 75% after, and Edit Price Schedule to Peak for just the hour or two of the requested saving period. It works pretty well. Instead of predicted usage of about 1 kWh, I get 0 usage.

It's interesting that even when all the appliances are off, I still see a background power usage of 300-400 W. Presumably, that's the "power vampires" that suck power continually.

The Tesla PowerWall app is very useful for tracking energy usage, monitoring solar power produced, checking the battery level, and setting custom criteria. I check it multiple times per day.