Andersen A2 and solar

[amnlinc]

I think I've secured wife approval for a solar install so I'm starting to look at charging options with the Andersen we have installed. Their website is a little sparse on how it works so I emailed support and they replied saying I can choose how much solar to use in the app. I already have the adaptive fuse fitted so I guess this is their "basic" solar setup (apparently the advanced one isn't a thing yet)

Does anybody use the Andersen to charge with the excess generation? If so does it work well?

 

[UkNorthampton]

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2022/10/14/andersen-ev-ceses-trading

I didn't know they were still trading or had been acquired. No experience with the their EVSEs, but interesting & best of luck (and a bump to your post).

https://andersen-ev.com/acquisition/

 

[amnlinc]

Thanks, apparently any development work is on pause following the acquisition. Hope they start again and improve their app soon! Their support person did try to sell me one of their evios chargers, not quite what I was after!

 

[BeerOhYeah]

I have an A2 with the basic solar. It works ok but i have an issue in that the CT mis-reports the solar production by 0.5kw and therefore thinks there is an excess when actually its all being used to charge the battery or heat hot water etc - i had them back out a couple of times but never sorted it so i essentially gave up trying to fix it and stopped using the diversion option.

When i did use it - it did throttle things fine and worked as it should - but for me it sometimes pulled out too much/little - so now i do it manually when the sun is out and just adjust the amps accordingly to match solar production. Might try and sort it again before the summer as it is a useful feature to have.

 

[amnlinc]

Thanks for the info, useful to know. My plan B was to write something to monitor excess and automatically adjust the charging amps to suit.

 

[WannabeOwner]

My plan B was to write something to monitor excess and automatically adjust the charging amps to suit.

My solar peaks mid summer at 14+kW, charging PowerWall flat out and only then (plus at peak if we have more than House + PowerWall can consume) pushing overspill to car (using Zappi in my case) doesn't use it all up ...

The route I've gone down is predicting Solar (I'm using solcast.com.au which is more accurate than Met Office ...), and then charging car(s) via the car's API when there is enough PV - i.e. I charge the car concurrently with PowerWall, rather than waiting until PowerWall is full and only then spilling over. I think this reduced AMPs is kinder to the PowerWall (I aim for what Tesla use for overnight charge, which I have read is "kinder" to the PowerWall than the flat-out peak rate which it will use to absorb max-Solar).

I am thus using the PowerWall to buffer the overspill - i.e. I can set the car to charge at X AMPs, and the PowerWall will absorb all additional, and cover whilst a cloud comes over.

Clearly a lot more complicated than just having the Zappi detect export and push that to the car, as was my original expectation, but in practice given the amount of PV I have and because we have 2x EV with varying SoC each day, and priority for which one is "Next needed for a trip", I've opted for complexity!

Just mentioning in case of interest

 

[amnlinc]

My solar peaks mid summer at 14+kW, charging PowerWall flat out and only then (plus at peak if we have more than House + PowerWall can consume) pushing overspill to car (using Zappi in my case) doesn't use it all up ...

The route I've gone down is predicting Solar (I'm using solcast.com.au which is more accurate than Met Office ...), and then charging car(s) via the car's API when there is enough PV - i.e. I charge the car concurrently with PowerWall, rather than waiting until PowerWall is full and only then spilling over. I think this reduced AMPs is kinder to the PowerWall (I aim for what Tesla use for overnight charge, which I have read is "kinder" to the PowerWall than the flat-out peak rate which it will use to absorb max-Solar).

I am thus using the PowerWall to buffer the overspill - i.e. I can set the car to charge at X AMPs, and the PowerWall will absorb all additional, and cover whilst a cloud comes over.

Clearly a lot more complicated than just having the Zappi detect export and push that to the car, as was my original expectation, but in practice given the amount of PV I have and because we have 2x EV with varying SoC each day, and priority for which one is "Next needed for a trip", I've opted for complexity!

Just mentioning in case of interest

I grabbed an API key for solcast yesterday so good to hear it's useful. How close do you find their predictions to be to reality?

 

[scdoubleu]

I grabbed an API key for solcast yesterday so good to hear it's useful. How close do you find their predictions to be to reality?

Given you're in Lincolnshire, you'll find the forecasts don't always cope too well when we get river valley fog, and/or low-level clag drifting in off the North Sea - common in north east Leics too this time of year. They usually correct themselves as the day progresses when satellite data comes in.

Otherwise the forecasts are generally decent.

 

[WannabeOwner]

How close do you find their predictions to be to reality?

Some days its way off, the rest of the time I find it surprisingly accurate (dunno about the actual kW, that might improve if I actually figured out exactly what angle my roof is etc.) but the Increase / Decrease spikes as cloud comes over is surprisingly accurate, and all I am after is a number that is representative relative to a baseline, I don't need actual figures

Note that the Graph as shown on their Forecast / Actual page is apparently using an old algorithm, and the download-able data is the new algorithm. I only know that 'coz I asked them why the data was different! So better to use downloaded data from API rather than the graph that is available on their website.

But as @scdoubleu says fog / mist catches it out - here too, where it is pancake flat, so not just in the valleys

I'm just using a Windows PC Scheduled task to pull the data at various times in the day (and storing it to accumulate a history of Forecast vs. Actual (both the Solcast actual and my actual which I get from Powerwall APP download each day)

curl --header "Accept: text/csv" --output MyFileName_Actuals_yyyymmdd.CSV Solcast1234-5678-90ab-cdef/estimated_actuals?api_key=aB1cD2eF3gH4iJ5kL6mN7oP8qR9sT0uV

and

curl --header "Accept: text/csv" --output MyFileName_Forecast_yyyymmdd.CSV Solcast1234-5678-90ab-cdef/forecasts?api_key=aB1cD2eF3gH4iJ5kL6mN7oP8qR9sT0uV

 

[amnlinc]

All great info thanks, I was planning to have something running on a raspberry pi to manage overnight battery charging based on the solar forecast and also to balance using the excess between battery, hot water, car and hot tub. Would also look at a monitoring screen so the wife can see when is a good time to use power hungry appliances during the day

 

[WannabeOwner]

Would also look at a monitoring screen so the wife can see when is a good time to use power hungry appliances during the day

I take the view to just do those sorts of things. The Battery may discharge "now" and recharge "later".

Choosing to do some things only on sunny days only is helpful - I rarely have days in Summer when we don't have enough to fill battery by evening (i.e. those days there may be little / no car charging), but in Winter a sunny day where we charge the car at all is rare ... so I am filling batteries from Off Peak overnight, and trying to stretch them through the day, and choosing to use electric goods on days where there enough sun does help

But for someone who is organised enough to check a screen that would be ideal.