I’ve finally gotten my Sense Solar to complete its signal check, but the numbers aren’t matching what my Tesla app shows and I was hoping someone can look at my CT placements and tell me if they’re in the right place.
I bought Sense specifically to monitor grid power/voltage. I’ve had several problems in my area with power fluctuations and water damage. My grid voltage is always on the high side and even once made the Tesla Gateway disconnect from the grid for 5 minutes before it re-connected.
I purchased the Sense Solar system just because I saw other users here had gotten it to work with Tesla Solar and Powerwalls. I would have no problem removing the Sense Solar CTs and just using the Grid CTs, but that number isn’t correct at the moment, which is why I’m asking for help.
I have a 11.85kW system with thirty panels, two Powerwall+ 7.6 inverters, and three Powerwall 2.0. My whole house is backed-up. I had electricians place all CTs inside the Tesla Gateway. Sense Support had me place the solar CTs on the lines feeding the three Solar/Powerwall breakers inside the Tesla Gateway. I originally had them on the lines feeding my Solar/Powerwall disconnect Switch, but had to move them since Sense wouldn’t complete the signal check there.
If anyone could help me understand what is going on, I would very much appreciate it.
If you think I should just remove the Sense Solar CTs, then please suggest that since I am really only concerned with Grid power, but I really need to know why Sense Grid CTs aren’t reading correctly first.
The issue I’m having is Sense appears to be showing power going ‘To Grid’, but it’s actually going to ‘Home’ and vice versa.
I’m attaching photos from this morning where my Powerwalls were supplying power to my house, but you can see that Sense shows it as going to the ‘Grid’. Obviously, the CT’s I put on the wires from my meter to the Tesla Gateway are the wrong ones. Just need to figure out which ones are from the grid meter.
That’s why I needed someone to confirm which wire is actually coming from the grid meter.
All of my wires are in conduit runs and the electricians I had install the CT’s were morons.
They actually cut the CT’s to get them through the conduits.
The grid looks like it comes in from the left side of your control box. Looks like in the photos the CT’s are on the mains from the grid. The other CT’s (I’m not super familiar with how that’s wired up) looks like it has 3 L1 and 3 L2 goto your power walls? Not sure, because 2 are 50amp and 1 is 30amp… Since you have 2 inverters and 3 x2.0 walls and the inverters are 7600w (32amps) not sure what they goto be cause of that.
Im positive that we have some users in here that have multiple power walls. Hoping one of them will chime in here.
The three breakers on the left are my Solar Inverters and Powerwalls.
The big breaker on the bottom right should be the Grid. You can see the black Tesla CT’s right above it. Those CT’s might be the ‘House’ CT’s, but I can see those two wires going to my meter box.
I’m wondering if maybe the Solar CTs are interfering with Sense. I might remove the Solar CT’s and see if Sense will read properly.
Since I haven’t been able to get any help for my setup and because Sense isn’t reading correctly, I’ve removed the solar CT’s and placed them on two dedicated circuits, a single 120V and single 240V only.
Sense works perfectly in this setup.
It is showing usage on the two dedicated circuits and shows no usage on my mains supply since I’m currently running on my Powerwalls! When I change my Powerwalls to never run unless the grid goes down, I can see grid usage!
It’s a shame I couldn’t get Sense to work with my Tesla Solar and Powerwalls, even after placing the CT’s in the correct spots, but at least now I can monitor grid Voltage like I originally purchased Sense for.
I am only using Sense on my house distribution panel box currently.
So it’s reading supply from the Gateway and not from the Power company.
Not the way I wanted it to work.
The reason for this is that the electricians had to cut the CT wires to run them through conduit to get to the Tesla gateway. I believe that cut and splice connection was the original problem with my Sense not working/reading correctly. So I bought two new CT wires and only ran it inside my house panel, where the Sense device is.
If you want to run Sense correctly, so that it reads power from your Utility company, then my original photos on this post are the correct ones to follow.
Two CT’s over the large black wires from the meter to the Gateway and Two CT’s encompassing all of your Solar Power breakers in the Tesla Gateway, one for Red and one for black, just like I had done is those photos.
You clipped yours onto the utility supply direct. I’m assuming the other two are connected to the AC inverters? Hard to tell from the picture.
I have mine connected to the house lines, the pink and black that are recessed a bit in the lower portion. These go directly to my breaker panel. I am able to read solar off my inverter lines, and typical usage from the breaker lines, but the problem I have is once the powerwalls are full, Sense sees solar production + usage as the same amount, like it is capturing exported power as drawn from the utility. I’ll try connecting to the lines you have in your picture, thanks for clarifying!
Yes, my Grid CT was connected between the meter and the Gateway, because I was trying to watch the power company voltage spikes that were happening. Plus, that will help Sense know that you are sending Solar to the Grid. Right now you see Solar coming in and going to your house. It’s probably confused as to what is happening. You can reach out to Sense and see if they can adjust that.
From your picture, I can’t tell if you are capturing all three breakers for the Powerwalls and Inverters.
I have three Powerwalls and two Inverters. Not sure if you have that same setup. My Solar CT’s encompassed three black wires and three red wires. One for each of the three small black breakers.
You should include all three of those black breakers in the Solar CT’s. Otherwise you won’t see total power from both Solar and Powerwalls.
If I was you, I would move your Grid CT’s to the incoming power to the Gateway, like in my picture.
Sense will learn specific devices even in this set up. It won’t detect small powered devices, but it will see refrigerators, heaters, A/C’s, etc.
I’ve got 4 powerwalls and 2 inverters. I’ll try the CT clips in those locations that later this week. Tomorrow’s probably not the best as we have bad storms incoming.
Thanks for the details, I’ll reply back once i have the connections as you suggest.
I moved the CTs to the location specified. While it works, it only shows me draw when I have drained batteries. I suppose there isn’t any perfect solution here, maybe Sense isn’t the right solution in this use case. At this point I am using Emporia and some other data collection tools to get this type of information. Thanks for the input, it was helpful.
Not sure why it doesn’t show usage during the day.
I do know that Sense does not like the Powerwalls. It gets confused when it sees power going to the grid and power going to the house/powerwalls. Maybe that is the issue.
I couldn’t get past the signal check with the correct placement like you just did, so I never got as far as you.
Good luck with Emporia. I can’t spend any more money on this endeavor.
The connections are from the meter to the Gateway, so as long as solar and the powerwalls are providing power to the house, I won’t see much usage from the grid. Well, until the powerwalls fill and I start exporting, then Sense sees export and usage, but in the wrong direction.
Not sure if you ever reached out to Sense Support, but they are able to adjust the settings/readings on their end, like changing the direction of flow if you happened to have reversed one or both of the CT’s.
Maybe that is what is going on. I would’ve reached out to them to see what they say.
My CTs are picking up energy in both directions, it just doesn’t differentiate whether it is a draw or a push. I’ll reach out to Sense support and see what they might suggest.
I reached out to sense support, which they responded first with a canned message guiding me to the installation guide. I replied back pointing out all the information, pictures and diagrams I provided in the initial ticket, then got a response back that my install is not supported. Guess this Sense device is going on marketplace.
I may keep this and install it into my panel. The Sense does have one slight advantage over the Emporia Vue, and that is more granular capture of power spikes (like when your AC kicks on). I can just not use the solar CTs, as I have that covered with other means. I’ll just have to figure out how to add to my already crowded panel, or just leave it in the Tesla Gateway box, as I have access to the main leads there anyways.
Yeah, they really need a third set of CTs so you could put one on each of the mains, solar, and powerwall.
They also need to make those CTs smaller. There’s no reason them to be as big as they are.
