Peak Time

Scheduled Adaptive

A Peak Time automation manages your battery reserve during your utility’s time-of-use (TOU) peak hours — automatically raising and lowering the reserve so your battery is ready when electricity costs the most.

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What it does

Peak Time automations run two actions:

1. At peak start: Raises battery reserve to your configured start percentage (e.g., 30%), so the battery won’t discharge below that level during peak hours. Switches your Powerwall to self-powered mode and disables grid charging outright — see the note below.
2. At peak end: Adjusts the reserve based on your chosen end behavior — either restoring it to whatever it was before the automation ran, or setting it to a specific percentage you define. Switches the Powerwall back to autonomous mode and re-enables grid charging.

Grid Getter shows “Grid charging is paused during this window.” on every Peak Time automation card as a reminder. Self-powered mode alone isn’t quite enough: Tesla will still pull from the grid in some cases, and disabling grid charging outright — not just relying on self-powered mode — closes that gap so you don’t pay peak rates for kWh you didn’t choose to buy.

You can also turn off Respect Tesla’s Storm Watch for the peak window, which stops Tesla from charging your battery to 100% from the grid when you’re trying to hold capacity for peak-hour discharge.

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When to use it

Peak Time is the right automation if your utility charges time-of-use rates with distinct peak periods. Common scenarios:

• Your utility charges peak rates from 4–9 PM on weekdays — set a Peak Time automation to reserve 30% battery at 4 PM, then release it at 9 PM
• Your summer rate schedule differs from winter — set active months accordingly
• You want to prevent Storm Watch from filling up your battery right before a peak period starts

Tip

Check your utility bill or utility’s website for your exact peak rate hours. Set your automation’s start time 1–2 minutes before the utility’s window to ensure the reserve is in place before peak starts.

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Creating a Peak Time automation

Tip

Rules made by Smart Automations start 2 minutes before your plan’s peak, so your Powerwall has already switched by the time the first peak interval is measured. Their Battery Reserve is the battery level you picked for peak during setup.

1. Go to Automations and click + Add Automation

2. Select the Peak Time tab

3. Give your automation a name

4. Set your peak window:

   • Start Time: when your utility’s peak period begins
   • End Time: when the peak period ends

   Times are interpreted in your account’s timezone, which is pre-filled from your profile (or your browser’s detected timezone if your profile has none). Confirm it’s correct before saving.

5. Configure Battery Reserve (optional but recommended):

   • Enable the battery reserve toggle
   • Set Reserve at Start — the percentage to hold during peak hours (e.g., 30%)
   • Choose what happens at peak end:
     • Restore to previous — Grid Getter snapshots your reserve just before peak starts and restores it when peak ends. Good if you don’t want to hardcode an end value. If you change the reserve during the window, in Grid Getter or with one of your Custom Schedule automations, it goes back to your new value instead.
     • Set to a specific % — Set an explicit end reserve (e.g., 0%) to release the battery after peak.
   • Turn on Battery Reserve to temporarily lower your reserve (default 10%, minimum 5%) when peak starts, freeing up more battery for discharge, then restore it when peak ends — or set an explicit end percentage instead under Advanced: at end of peak. A reserve of 25% or higher shows a warning with how much of the battery is left to cover peak; most homes do best between 10% and 20%. Weather Guard (on by default) skips the lowering when Storm Watch is active, a severe weather alert covers your site, or weather data is missing or stale. Weather Guard needs your site’s location — if none is set, the toggle is disabled with a link to set it.

6. Under Storm Watch, turn off Respect Tesla’s Storm Watch if you want to stop Storm Watch from charging your battery from the grid during peak hours. Grid Getter turns Storm Watch off when peak starts and puts it back when it ends — if Storm Watch was already off, it stays off. It’s the same switch DemandGuard has, and on both, on means storms come first. If your site doesn’t support Storm Watch, the switch is off and disabled

7. Set the schedule: choose days of the week and months that match your utility’s peak schedule

8. Click Create Automation

Tip

If the window you configured already covers right now, the form shows a Start it immediately on save checkbox. Leave it unchecked to wait for the next scheduled start, or check it to run the start actions the moment you save. The checkbox doesn’t appear while your automations are paused.

Note

Grid Getter never sets the start reserve above your battery’s current charge. If peak starts with the battery below your configured reserve (say 20% charged with a 30% reserve), the reserve is set just under the current level instead — Tesla would otherwise charge the battery from the grid at full power during peak hours to close the gap, even with grid charging disabled. The Activity Log shows the adjusted value and why.

Note

Tesla’s cloud API doesn’t honor backup reserve values between 81% and 99% — if you set Reserve at Start, Reserve at End, or Battery Reserve in that range, Grid Getter automatically adjusts it down to 80%, the highest value Tesla will accept without forcing the battery to charge. Set 100% if you want a “keep full” hold instead. Why? →

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Settings reference

Setting	What it does	Default
Name	Label for this automation	Required
Description	Optional note	Empty
Start Time	When peak period begins	14:00 (2 PM)
End Time	When peak period ends	18:00 (6 PM)
Battery Reserve at Start	Reserve % applied when peak begins	Off
End Reserve Mode	What to do with the reserve when peak ends: Restore to previous or Set to specific %	Off
Battery Reserve at End	Reserve % applied when peak ends (only visible when End Reserve Mode is “Set to specific %“)	Off
Battery Reserve	Temporarily lowers your reserve when peak starts so more battery is available to discharge, then restores it when peak ends (minimum 5%). When off, Grid Getter sets no peak reserve of its own; with Keep battery level after peak on, the held level is released back to your previous reserve at peak start, otherwise it stays wherever it is.	Off (10% when enabled)
Weather Guard	Skips lowering your Battery Reserve when Storm Watch is active, a severe weather alert covers your site, or weather data is missing or stale	On
Keep battery level after peak	At the end of peak, sets your reserve to wherever the battery is so it holds that charge overnight instead of draining to your usual reserve. See Keeping your charge after peak.	On for new automations
Minimum overnight reserve	With “Keep battery level after peak”: if peak drained the battery below this, it grid-charges back up to it (0–80%)	None
Respect Tesla’s Storm Watch	On: Storm Watch is left alone during peak. Off: Grid Getter turns Storm Watch off for the peak window	Off for new automations
Days of Week	Which days the automation runs	Mon–Fri
Months	Which months it’s active. Pick at least one	All months

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Example configurations

Classic evening TOU protection

• Start: 16:00 (4 PM) — Set reserve to 30%
• End: 21:00 (9 PM) — End Reserve Mode: Set to 0%
• Days: Mon–Fri
• Months: All

This keeps your battery at least 30% charged during peak hours so it can power your home through the evening, then releases the reserve at 9 PM so overnight charging and morning solar can fill it back up.

Let Grid Getter restore your reserve automatically

• Start: 16:00 (4 PM) — Set reserve to 30%
• End: 21:00 (9 PM) — End Reserve Mode: Restore to previous
• Days: Mon–Fri
• Months: All

If your reserve shifts throughout the day for other reasons, “Restore to previous” puts it back exactly where it was before peak started. No end percentage to hardcode, and nothing to keep in sync.

Summer-only peak protection

• Start: 15:00 (3 PM) — Set reserve to 50%
• End: 20:00 (8 PM) — End Reserve Mode: Set to 0%
• Days: Mon–Sat
• Months: Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep

Some utilities have much higher peak rates in summer. You can run a more aggressive reserve only during those months.

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What happens when peak ends

At the end of peak, Grid Getter returns your Powerwall to your resting mode — Time-Based Control until you choose otherwise — and applies your end-of-peak reserve setting.

Keeping your charge after peak

In Self-Powered mode the battery drains to your reserve every night, whatever is left in it. If you would rather keep that charge — less cycling, more backup for an outage — turn on Keep battery level after peak. When peak ends, Grid Getter sets your reserve to the level the battery is at, rounded down to a whole percent, so a battery that finishes peak at 63.7% holds at 63% until the next window starts, when your normal reserve settings take over again.

Set a Minimum overnight reserve if you want a floor under that: when peak drains the battery below the minimum, Tesla charges it back up to the minimum from the grid.

Two things to know:

• Tesla can’t hold a reserve between 81% and 99%, so a battery that ends peak above 80% settles at 80%.
• Holding the charge also keeps the battery from exporting after peak. If you take part in a virtual power plant or sell to the grid in the evening, leave this off.

If you turn the setting off while a peak window is running, the form tells you what the reserve will go back to when the window ends — the level it had before peak started — and lets you set an end-of-peak reserve instead.

While a hold is in force, the Battery section of the Live Dashboard says so — which automation is holding it, at what level, and what it goes back to at the next peak start — with buttons to change the reserve now or set a Battery Reserve. The level it goes back to is the reserve you had before the hold. If that isn’t what you want during peak, set a Battery Reserve, or change your reserve and the hold ends there. Turning the holding rule off doesn’t release the hold: the reserve stays where it is until you change it, and the Battery section says so.

Battery Threshold overlap warning

If you have a Battery Threshold automation with a custom window that overlaps this Peak Time automation, Grid Getter shows a non-blocking warning on the Peak Time form. Battery Threshold defers automatically during Peak Time windows — the warning is informational only and doesn’t prevent saving.

If your Battery Threshold automation uses Outside Peak Time and DemandGuard windows mode, it automatically adapts to any Peak Time automations you add, with no overlap concern.

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If your Tesla goes offline during a peak window

If your Tesla connection drops while a Peak Time automation is active — and your Powerwall is left in Self Consumption mode when peak ends — Grid Getter catches this on reconnect.

When your Tesla reconnects, Grid Getter checks whether your Powerwall is stuck in Self Consumption outside of any active peak window. If it is, Grid Getter restores your baseline operation mode (the mode you had before the automation last ran, falling back to Autonomous when there’s no history) and logs the action in your Activity Log. No manual intervention needed.

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Plan requirements

Peak Time automations require a Scheduled or Adaptive subscription.

If you’re on the free plan and try to save a Peak Time automation, you’ll see an option to upgrade. See Subscription Tiers.