POST /api/operation

[swm11]

It would be really useful if I could locally instruct my powerwall to change operating mode, e.g. to force the battery to charge by changing the backup_reserve_percent.

I've tried adding the following to powerwall.py (should use enumeration for opmode in the final version):
def set_operation_mode(self, opmode: str, pc: int):
return self._api.post_operation_mode({"mode": opmode, "backup_reserve_percent": str(pc)})
and to api.py:
def post_operation_mode(self, body: dict) -> dict:
return self.post("operation", body, needs_authentication=True)

But I get the response:
tesla_powerwall.error.AccessDeniedError: Access denied for resource /api/operation: Unable to POST to resource

Though it appears that vloschiavo has gotten this to work:
https://github.com/vloschiavo/powerwall2/blob/master/README.md#apioperation

Any ideal how to fix this?

[jrester]

Try to perform the request manually with curl as described in vloschiavos documentation. This may result in a more descriptive error message and explain why the powerwall isn't accepting the post request.

[swm11]

Thanks for the feedback. Will try that though a sequence of curl commands to gain access and then perform a command isn't very helpful from a reproducibility point of view and it isn't clear how up-to-date the vloschiavos documentation is.

Have you tried to change the powerwall charge state (i.e. to ask the powerwall to charge) using your library? I would have thought that it was the main thing that is useful to automate.

[jrester]

Using curl is just for testing and to examine the error. That way we can find out how to interact with the powerwall and later implement it the library. I looked at the source code of the powerwall webpage and it seems like the documentation is still up-to-date.

Before the rewrite the feature was implemented but quite unstable as telsa often changed the API. As such I removed it from the library. But if you find a way to use this endpoint correctly, I would be happy readd this feature.

[scienceintheshed]

Has there been any success with this as the code from mlowijs/tesla_api#43 seems to now have an problem.

[omaliphant]

I would also really appreciate this feature! i had hoped i could use the solar predictions from solcast.com.au to allow me to estimate more accurately the likely solar power for the day and then adjust the backup% so i could force the powerwall to charge during cheap rate power from 12:30am to 4:30am to a level which would then avoid me having to touch the grid again during peak times.
any update on the ability to change the backup% ?

[omaliphant]

looks like there is a viable way to do it @jrester...

spoonwzd commented on 23 Oct 2020 •
You simply POST the backup_reserve_percent value in JSON to the /api/1/energy_sites/energy_site_id/backup API URL along with the authorization bearer @BJReplay

This is how I'm doing it in node-red with a custom JavaScript function:

msg.headers = {
Authorization: "Bearer " + MY_AUTH_TOKEN,
"content-type": "application/json"
}
msg.method = "POST"
msg.url = "https://owner-api.teslamotors.com/api/1/energy_sites/MY_SITE_ID/backup"
msg.payload = {
"backup_reserve_percent": 77
}

any chance of adding this to a future release?

[BJReplay]

It's really hard to understand what the original poster is asking for here (perhaps it is an update to this repo), but here is the current status.

• local control is no longer possible without toggling the switch on the side of the powerwall
• local monitoring is possible, provided that you log in with the customer credentials to obtain a local token for subsequent requests
• remote control is possible, but may be frustrated by captcha on login - especially, it seems, if your code is running in the cloud; I have not hit this issue running code on an always on PC (at the same public IP as my powerwall).
• you can set the backup reserve percentage remotely to initiate charging. With a short charge window of only four hours, I'd suggest to @omaliphant that you also set the mode to backup only (it will charge at 3.3kW vs 1.7kW in self-consumption mode) if you normallly run in self-consumption mode. If you run in autonomous mode, charging may be as fast at 5kW.

My code at https://github.com/BJReplay/PowerwallService/blob/master/PowerwallService/PowerwallService.vb#L825 and https://github.com/BJReplay/PowerwallService/blob/master/PowerwallService/PowerwallService.vb#L915 gives you a bit of an idea. It's VB.Net. Sorry. Not Sorry. I also use https://github.com/tomhollander/TeslaAuth but pull that in as source as I ran into a .Net versioning conflict that prevented me from pulling it in as a package.

[jrester]

@omaliphant What you are referring to is the external Tesla API but this library uses the local API which works differently afik.

@BJReplay I currently don't have access to a powerwall to test this. If you like to help out I would be happy to merge a PR implementing this functionality. Vloschiavo also has an example for this in his repo but I am unsure if this is up to date. Any help regarding this feature would be greatly appreciated!

[scienceintheshed]

@jrester I have a Powerwall 2 and would be happy to test this functionality.

This was a function that I had in my previous cloud implementation but it broke when Tesla change the oauth earlier this year. I'm using your current version for local access.

[jrester]

Great! I will prototype an implementation for you to test.

[scienceintheshed]

@jrester how are you going with the implementation?

[jrester]

A test implementation is on the operation branch. Would be glad if you could test it!

[dailow]

Getting an error when trying to do post_operation. Getting information from the API seems to be working just fine with the same login.

api.post_operation({"mode":"self_consumption","backup_reserve_percent":30})

File "/opt/tesla_powerwall/tesla_powerwall/api.py", line 210, in post_operation
return self.post("operation", payload=payload)
File "/opt/tesla_powerwall/tesla_powerwall/api.py", line 145, in post
return self._process_response(response)
File "/opt/tesla_powerwall/tesla_powerwall/api.py", line 89, in _process_response
self._handle_error(response)
File "/opt/tesla_powerwall/tesla_powerwall/api.py", line 68, in _handle_error
response_json.get("message"),
tesla_powerwall.error.AccessDeniedError: Access denied for resource /api/operation: Unable to POST to resource: User does not have adequate access rights

[jrester]

It seems like you have to be logged in as installer to change the operation mode.

[jrester]

@dailow @scienceintheshed could you try this when being logged in as installer?