Glad you asked!

Well maybe you didn't ask, but somebody did, trust me. Here's what I answered, and then some:

Our solar system so far has been wonderful. Having the battery truly makes it a system; without it, you can only use the solar power when the sun’s up.

We’re still in our first year, so haven’t experienced all the seasons yet. Yesterday I finally turned on the A/C like I meant it—running through the hottest part of the day. Up until then we could rely on open windows and ceiling fans to keep us breezy and comfortable (neither of us have pollen allergies). But yesterday was Too Much and I caved to my comfort.

The resulting chart looked like a wide-toothed comb.

The sun’s power covered the A/C electrical draw (blue upward spike on the graph whenever the A/C was running), and as soon as the A/C cycled off, the sun’s power went to the grid (white downward spike on the graph). Our battery (green spikes) provided the extra electricity needed as the sun’s power waned:

The up-and-down action going on with the green shows that first the battery was used to supply the additional power needed to run the A/C, then when the A/C cycled off the system sent sun power to the battery to recharge it back to 100% capacity.

Everything in play

Other things being shown in this graph:

• The battery supplied all our needs until roughly 6am, when it reached the 50% remaining level and turned itself off (that's an option we set; in a non-grid situation, all battery power is available for use). The grid supplied our energy then until the sun had enough presence to supply our needs, around 7:30.
• Somebody was still up and active until roughly 2 am, at which point the usage/battery (blue & green together) finally settled down to the usual low-usage nighttime wave. I think the wave is the cycling on and off of the refrigerator's condenser/motor/fan/whatever makes it go.
• Must've been cloudy around 1 pm.
• The battery is recharged first, then excess power goes to the grid. That's not an exclusive action, however. If there's enough power to do both, both are done (light green section where the green and white overlap.)
• Somebody was still up and active until midnight. (It was me, both times. I've been moving into and out of various computers for the past several days, as well as dumping many GB of data into the chorus's Google Drive. Lots of time spent waiting for downloads to complete. Thank goodness I had a book to read!)

The one remaining question is: do we get 220V when the grid is offline? I.e., if we’re relying solely on our battery, without a grid presence in the background (and sensed by the system), will all the battery power be reserved for/used by the 100V appliances only, and nothing provided for 220V appliances? We were told that by the salesman, but have yet to test it out.

The power has gone out a couple of times this Winter and Spring, and inside the house you can barely tell. There’s a quick flicker, less even than a “brown out”, and things go on as usual. I happened to be in the sewing room the first time, right next to where the battery is installed, and heard a “thunk” as something physically switched in the box, but that was the only solid clue that we were truly off-grid. The Tesla app showed an orange border around the screen, and a big X over the grid icon.

What I didn’t expect was my reaction. Rather than being completely gleeful, the major part of me wanted to pretend as much as possible that we were without power too. Didn’t want to be a “Have" in the middle of all the "Have Nots”; humans are ugly enough in the best of times. So I lit candles and turned off lights and used only those devices that had a legitimate battery (iPad, laptop). Let the Tesla battery do its job of quietly and invisibly keeping the refrigerator running.

Our last electric bill was 17 cents. The Solar credit was nice too—covered all our taxes this year with some left over for next year.

Texas is expecting a severe Spring this year. They had a “Tax Free Holiday” a couple of weekends ago: customers buying items needed/used in an emergency could purchase them without paying our 8.25% sales tax. This is the first time I remember hearing of *this* event; usually, this type of “holiday” weekend is held just before school starts, for clothes and school-related items. Nobody would be impolitic enough to point to any kind of cause for a possible severe Spring, however. That’s just crazy talk! But I sit here and think, “Bring it on—let’s test this puppy out!!!"

Our consciousness about when the sun’s providing the power has sharpened too, and we now prefer to do our laundry (especially using the dryer—220V) in the morning when we can make the best use it. The next solar step would be to start hanging clothes out to dry, neh? I don’t know what the HOA would think about that! Our backyard is too much of a disaster right now to even consider a clothesline anyway.