Insights

Every night around 3 AM your site’s time, Grid Getter looks back over the last 30 days of your site and writes up anything worth knowing. Those write-ups are insights. Each one says what we noticed, how sure we are, and gives you a link to the setting that would change it.

Where to find them

On the Live Dashboard, an Insights section sits right under Power Flow. It shows the top two. Next to the title it tells you when the analysis last ran and how many there are in all, like “as of 3:02 AM · top 2 of 5”. See all insights opens the full page, and when there are more than fit, a row under the cards says how many more are waiting there. You can also jump straight to it with the Insights chip in the section navigation.
On the Insights page, reached from Explore → Insights in the top navigation. It shows every open insight, grouped and filterable, with the what-if panel beside it.

The Insights item in the Explore menu carries a small count when you have Timely insights open. It counts only those, never what-ifs.

If nothing new turned up overnight, the dashboard section shrinks to a single row: “Nothing new last night,” with an Ask a what-if link to the panel on the Insights page. Without DemandGuard, the row reads “Battery, solar and rate plan checks” with a See insights link instead. The section never just disappears.

Insights are in beta

Every Insights heading carries a Beta badge. Insights are new, and we work them out each night from your Tesla data and the rate plan saved in your Tesla app, so some may be wrong. A typo in your rate plan, like a rate typed in cents instead of dollars, is enough to throw one off. Tap Beta to read about it, then Report a problem to send us a bug report. It opens already set up as a bug about insights, with a screenshot of the page behind it. Tell us which insight looks wrong and what you expected.

Reading a card

Every insight card has the same parts:

A colored dot and a category label: Forecast, Demand, Battery, Solar, or Rate plan.
Tags. Estimate means the number came from a simulation, not a meter reading. Low confidence means we had thin data, so we show kilowatts and kilowatt-hours only and no dollar amounts.
A headline, then a sentence or two of detail.
For estimates, the line “Estimate from your last 30 days, not a promise.”
A link to act on it, and on the right, the evidence behind it, such as “22 of 30 days.”

Dollars never appear in a headline. When an insight can put a figure on it and we’re confident enough, it shows up in the detail text as “up to $X a month, with ideal control.” That is the best case if everything went perfectly, so treat it as an upper bound.

Any card that shows a simulated number always comes with a link to a setting you can change. Nothing is ever changed for you from an insight.

How DemandGuard fits this site

If you run DemandGuard, the first card is a backtest of your last 30 days. It compares what your meter recorded in your worst billing interval (a half-hour on most plans) with what your battery could have held. On the dashboard it’s pinned in the first slot and takes one of the two spots. On the Insights page it leads the Demand group and shows more:

A bar from 0 to 12 kW. The filled part is how low your battery could have held the peak. The striped band is the extra it could have gained by starting every day full. There is no band, and no card telling you to arrive full, when your window runs 12 hours or longer, or for days your battery refilled to full inside the window, since starting full wouldn’t have changed those. One tick marks your target, and a red tick marks your billed peak.
Two tiles. One shows the demand charge you were billed for the season we measured and how much less it could have been. The other shows how full your battery was when the window started, and on how many days it ran empty before the window ended. The tiles appear only when your rate plan has a demand charge we can price.
How we worked this out, which opens the assumptions behind the numbers.
Try a different target, which opens your DemandGuard automation.

This card can’t be hidden, and it has no menu.

What the DemandGuard cards suggest

The backtest also tells us what is holding your peak up. When changing one setting would have let your battery hold the peak at least 1 kW lower, you get a Demand card that names it. These need the same history as the backtest: at least 10 measured days in the last 30.

Your battery starts DemandGuard low. The headline gives the charge your battery usually has when the window opens, such as “Your battery starts DemandGuard at 62%”. The detail names your hardest day and what the battery could have held if it had started full, and suggests Pre-Peak Charge to top it up before the window. Its link reads Set up Pre-Peak Charge. You only get this card when your site doesn’t run Pre-Peak Charge yet, your battery started below 90% on its hardest day, and your window is shorter than 12 hours.
Your Demand Floor leaves too little for DemandGuard. When your Demand Floor or backup reserve is 25% or higher, the headline says how much of the battery is left to work with, such as “Your Demand Floor leaves 6.8 kWh for DemandGuard”. The detail says what the battery could have held with the floor at 0%. Its link reads Review Demand Floor, or Review backup reserve when the number came from your reserve rather than a Demand Floor.

Sometimes a high Demand Floor and a battery that starts the window low each cost a little, but neither is enough for a card on its own. When the two together would have let your battery hold the peak at least 1 kW lower, you get one card that names both: how much of the pack your Demand Floor leaves, how low the battery started on its hardest day, and what arriving full with the floor at 20% would have held. It links to Review Demand Floor, and Pre-Peak Charge is the other half of the fix. No card ever suggests a higher target, since a higher target only leaves the battery idle on lighter days.

A fourth Battery card, Target missed — battery at full power, appears when your battery gave everything its inverter could and the peak still went over your target. Lowering the target won’t help on those days, and the card says so. Its full description is under Target missed at full power. On the Live Dashboard it shows as its own card rather than in the Insights section.

If your site doesn’t run DemandGuard

When your rate plan has a demand charge, Grid Getter can still look back over 30 days and ask what DemandGuard would have done. If it would have held your peak meaningfully lower, you get a card in Worth knowing: “DemandGuard could have held your September peak to about 8.6 kW.” It’s an estimate, so it carries the Estimate tag and the usual disclaimer, and the detail line says what your meter recorded. If we can put a figure on it, that appears in the detail text as “up to $X a month, with ideal control.” The evidence on the right says how many of the 30 days we measured, such as “22 of 30 days.”

The card needs a rate plan with a demand charge (or your answer that you have one, or a plan name that says it has one, like “Time-of-Use with Demand Charge”), and at least 10 on-peak days in the last 30 to measure. With either missing, or a gain too small to matter, there is no card. The gain also has to show up on at least 3 days, not just one. A few more cases never get the card:

DemandGuard ran on your site at any point in those 30 days, or a DemandGuard automation was on. The peak we’d measure is then DemandGuard’s own result.
Your highest peak happened while the battery couldn’t help: it was charging from the grid, or sitting full and idle (as it does during Storm Watch).
Your battery could already carry the whole peak period, the same “nothing here for DemandGuard to do” answer you saw when you connected.
Your demand charge applies at any hour, not only on-peak (for example, a single rate you entered yourself). The card only measures on-peak hours, so it stays off for these plans for now.

When we size what the battery could have held, we use the backup reserve that was set at the time of your peak, not today’s setting. It never appears alongside a forecast or a health alert as the lead item.

The link on the card depends on your subscription. If DemandGuard is included, it says Create DemandGuard and opens the form. If not, it says See what DemandGuard includes and opens your subscription page. Nothing is turned on for you either way.

This card’s menu has one choice, Not interested. The card is hidden for 30 days. After that it comes back only if a newer month shows a bigger saving than the one you hid. Otherwise it stays hidden. Picked on the dashboard while the card is selling DemandGuard (the second link above), Not interested works like any upgrade suggestion’s, as described under Hiding an insight.

Have a demand charge?

If we can’t tell whether your rate plan has a demand charge (you haven’t answered, or you said you’re not sure), we ask. The question is a dashed row: “Have a demand charge? Tell us and we’ll check whether DemandGuard would have helped.” Add it opens the Demand charge card in your energy plan settings, where you can enter your rate, pick a Phoenix-area plan, or say you don’t have one. Answer “No” and we stop asking. If you said yes but left the rate out, this row doesn’t come back; the dashboard banner asks for the rate instead (see Demand charge question). Saying yes is enough for the DemandGuard card: without a rate it shows the peak in kW and leaves out the dollar figure. Once you’ve answered yes or added a rate, the card shows up after the next nightly run if DemandGuard would have helped.

The question is only ever asked in one place at a time on your dashboard. If the banner at the top of the dashboard is asking, the Insights section stays quiet about it. If not, the Insights section shows the row, with a close button. Closing either one hides the question on both for 30 days on that browser. The Insights page always shows the row while the question is open, and it has no close button because it is that page’s own content. Answering in settings clears it everywhere. Sites in Australia don’t see the question.

On the dashboard, a site without DemandGuard shows the question in the Insights section when there is no card to show and the banner isn’t asking it.

Free accounts

Free accounts get the same things: the DemandGuard card, the demand-charge question, the rate season card and the battery and solar cards. The question works from your first visit, even before any insights exist. The card needs history, so it shows up once we have enough days of your site to measure, with the same Estimate tag, the same “not a promise” line, and the same hide choice. Its link reads See what DemandGuard includes and opens your subscription page; nothing is turned on for you.

An Estimate tag means the figure is our best reading of your last 30 days, not a bill and not a promise. Until the card appears, the Insights page says your first insights are on the way. Without DemandGuard, the what-if panel still lists its questions, grayed out with “Needs DemandGuard”, because each one replays DemandGuard history.

Pre-Peak Charge and your solar

Two Solar cards come from Pre-Peak Charge rather than DemandGuard, so they show up for any site with a Pre-Peak Charge rule, whether or not DemandGuard runs. They are checked once a week.

A later “Battery full by” would help. We measured solar still topping the battery up inside your peak window on most peak days (weekends and other days your peak rules skip aren’t counted). The card names the hour solar usually finishes and how much grid charging a later full-by time would save each day. That saving comes from what Pre-Peak Charge actually drew from the grid before peak over the last two weeks, so if it rarely needed the grid, the card doesn’t appear. It also stays away when a poor solar day couldn’t finish the fill from 80%, the highest partial level Tesla accepts. Its link opens Pre-Peak Charge on Background Rules, where you choose the time.
Your later full-by left the battery short. If you set a later time and the battery kept coming up under its aim at that time, the card says on how many of the recent peak days and by about how much, and suggests moving the time back to peak start.

Both are estimates from your own history and never change the setting for you.

When your rate season changes

Many rate plans change their peak hours or peak price with the season. SRP E-27, for example, moves from one afternoon peak in Fall to a morning and an evening peak in Winter. Two weeks before your plan’s next season starts, a Rate plan card says when it starts and what changes, titled by the change itself (“New peak hours start Nov 1”, or “Lower peak prices start Nov 1” when only the price moves) and followed by the detail, such as “Peak moves from 2–8pm to 5–9am and 5–9pm.” Its link opens your Automations so you can check that your rules match the new times. It’s also a good moment to move big loads like the dishwasher and EV charging outside the new peak.

The card only appears when the change is one you’d notice: different weekday peak hours, or a peak price that moves by at least a cent. Weekend-only and partial-peak changes don’t count. It stays up for a week after the new season starts.

You also get a notification and an email two weeks ahead, and again the day before. Both go out at 10 AM in your site’s time zone. Hiding the card doesn’t stop the day-before reminder. Both follow the Rate Season Changes switch in notification settings, and the season dates come from the rate plan on your account, so they follow your plan’s own calendar.

Grid Getter reads your rate plan from Tesla once a week and looks three weeks ahead, so a plan you change in Tesla shows up here within a week. If we only learn about a season change with less than a week to go, say because you just switched plans, you skip the two-week heads-up and get the day-before reminder only.

Battery and solar at peak

Three cards look at how your battery and solar did during your peak hours over the last 30 days. They are checked once a week, on the same night each week for your site, so a card can take up to a week to appear or to go away after your battery’s behavior changes. Each one only shows up when the pattern is clear: on at least 10 of the last 30 peak days, or 5 of the last 14. Days we couldn’t read, because there’s no battery history around peak, don’t count either way, and with fewer than a week of readable days the cards stay away.

Your battery started peak under half full. The card says on how many days and what the battery averaged when peak began. It only appears when topping up before peak can pay off: your peak rate is at least 5¢ per kWh above your cheapest rate this season, or your plan has a demand charge. On free and Scheduled plans its link shows what Adaptive includes, because Pre-Peak Charge tops the battery up before peak. If you’re on Adaptive and haven’t turned Pre-Peak Charge on, the link opens its setup instead. Once Pre-Peak Charge runs, the card goes away.
Your battery had charge left at peak. Peak started with the battery at 40% or more, yet you still bought at least 1 kWh from the grid during peak while the battery sat idle. Grid power bought while the battery was charging, already running flat out, or down at your backup reserve doesn’t count, because no rule could have covered it. The card adds up the rest in kWh and dollars, and only appears when that comes to at least $1 and peak costs more than the rest of the day: your peak rate is at least 5¢ per kWh above your cheapest rate this season, or your plan has a demand charge. A Peak Time rule runs your home from the battery through peak, so on a free account its link shows what Scheduled includes. On Scheduled or Adaptive with no Peak Time or DemandGuard rule turned on, its link reads Set up a Peak Time rule and opens a new Peak Time rule. Once a Peak Time or DemandGuard rule is on, the card goes away.
You sold solar cheap and bought it back at peak. From your Tesla energy history: the solar you sent to the grid, what you were credited, and what you then paid at peak. It shows when keeping that solar for peak would be worth at least $5 a month and comes to at least 15 kWh a month. On days your battery already started peak full, there was no room to keep more, so those days don’t count, and if that’s most days the card stays away. If your plan credits exported solar at the same price you’d pay at peak, there’s nothing to gain and the card never shows. It stays quiet when the “charge left at peak” card already tells the story. Like that card, it shows what Scheduled includes on a free account, offers Set up a Peak Time rule on Scheduled or Adaptive with no Peak Time or DemandGuard rule turned on, and goes away once one is on.

If any rate in your plan is over $2 per kWh, which almost always means it was typed in cents, none of these three cards appear until the plan is fixed. These are estimates from your own history and never change a setting for you. If you upgrade, a card that no longer applies to your plan goes away at once rather than at the next weekly check, and the same goes for a Set up a Peak Time rule card once you turn on a Peak Time or DemandGuard rule. When one first appears you get a notification at 10 AM your site’s time that day (at most once a month per card, and never more than one a day). If two cards are new on the same day, you hear about the one worth the most. Turn those off with the Insight Tips switch in notification settings.

Timely and Worth knowing

The Insights page splits cards into two groups. Timely insights expire within 48 hours, so they’re worth a look today. Worth knowing holds everything else, newest and most important first. A group with nothing in it doesn’t show.

The filter pills above the groups let you narrow by category, each with its count. Categories with nothing in them are left out. The filter lives in the page address (?category=demand), so you can bookmark or share a filtered view. The DemandGuard card on the Automations page shows an insights badge that opens the page already filtered to Demand.

Hiding an insight

Open the ••• menu on a card. What hiding does depends on where you are.

On the Insights page, choose Hide this insight, then For 30 days or For 90 days. The card disappears everywhere right away and a message tells you the date it may return, for example “Hidden until Nov 3. It comes back if it still applies.” If the situation has changed by then, it won’t come back at all.

On the Live dashboard, the same choices hide the card from the dashboard only. It stays on the Insights page.

Cards that suggest an upgrade (their link says See what Scheduled includes, See what Adaptive includes or See what DemandGuard includes) have one choice instead: Not interested, for 30 days. On the Insights page it hides that card. On the dashboard it takes every upgrade suggestion off the dashboard, not just the one you picked, and they all stay on the Insights page. Either way, no notification about an upgrade suggestion goes out for those 30 days. Cards that only point at a setting you already have, like Set up Pre-Peak Charge or Set up a Peak Time rule, are not affected.

When more than one upgrade suggestion applies, the dashboard shows the one worth the most a month, and the Insights page lists them all.

There is no list of hidden insights. If a hide fails, the card returns and you can try again.

Ask a what-if

The panel on the right of the Insights page (under the cards on a phone) answers fixed questions about your site:

What if my battery started full every day?
What if my backup reserve were 20%?
What if I’d lowered my target by 1 kW?

All three need DemandGuard history, so sites without DemandGuard see them grayed out.

Pick a question and Grid Getter runs it on your last 30 days. It takes a moment. Then you see one of these:

A result, with the answer, a short note, the Estimate tag, the same disclaimer as the cards, and a link to the matching setting.
A short note on why there’s no answer, such as “Not enough history yet”, “Needs DemandGuard”, or “Nothing lower to try”, with a sentence on what’s missing.
Couldn’t run this one, if something went wrong on our side. Nothing was changed. Try again runs it once more.

A question we can’t answer for your site stays in the list, grayed out, with the reason next to it. Clear puts the panel back to its starting state. Picking a different question while one is running replaces it.

What-ifs are not insights. They never appear on the dashboard and never count toward the badge. And just like insights, running one never changes a setting.

From an insight to the setting

When you tap an insight’s link, it opens the automation it’s about. A blue banner at the top of the form repeats the insight: “From your insight: …”. Dismiss it with the ✕. The field the insight is about, such as your target or your Demand Floor, is scrolled into view and selected. We don’t fill in a value for you. You decide what to type.

Time Explorer

The data builder that used to be called Explore is now Time Explorer, the other item in the Explore menu. It works the same way. See Explore for everything it does.