Anyone in the UK got 'EV Charging' option in Powerwall settings?

[LampyDave]

So I don’t have this, but I am not sure I want it. The Powerwall cannot see my Zappi charger, it just sees a large house load when the car is charging. I wouldn’t want the whole house frequency being reduced just for this. But it is unusual we charge the car over night anyway.

To each their own of course, but when I tested it out the frequency dropped to 49.6Hz (from 50) - a 0.8% change - and that was enough to stop the car from charging to preserve the charge in the Powerwalls. That's the joy of this system - it doesn't need to 'know about' your charger, it just works.

 

[WannabeOwner]

The Powerwall cannot see my Zappi charger, it just sees a large house load when the car is charging.

My dumb-charger Tesla Charger too ...

PowerWall / Tesla Mothership can see both my (Tesla) EVs ... but APP still shows any daytime charging as "House load"

 

[Big Dunc]

Each to their own of course, but when I tested it out the frequency dropped to 49.6Hz (from 50) - a 0.8% change - and that was enough to stop the car from charging to preserve the charge in the Powerwalls. That's the joy of this system - it doesn't need to 'know about' your charger, it just works.

OK, maybe I should turn it on then if the option comes up in the app at some point.

 

[LampyDave]

OK, maybe I should turn it on then if the option comes up in the app at some point.

I wanted it because the priority in a power cut would be to have the house still on, but still wanted have the car charger on the 'backed up' side so that it could charge from the solar during a power cut in the summer.
The option is (AFAIK) very unlikely to just appear - you'd need to raise it with Tesla CS - which might not be worth the hassle for you.

As another side-note, if you have solar then during a power cut the powerwall raises the frequency to 'tell' the solar inverter to stop producing if the powerwall/s are full, so frequency tweaks in both directions are built into the system. Then when the power grid comes back online the system is smart enough to re-sync with the grid before reconnecting the house to the grid. It's a clever business...

Now if only our electricity grid were less reliable (we're in a built up area) then all this tech could be tested more often!

 

[Big Dunc]

I was aware the frequency increased to slow the inverters down when the powerwall filled. I once set to "off grid" on a sunny day as the powerwall was almost full and watched the system work. You could really see the inverts back off when the powerwalls were full and I could watch the frequency on the inverters. We have very few powercuts, so it is not really a priority to chase CS.

 

[WannabeOwner]

We have very few powercuts

My view on that:

I could keep a 10% reserve for PowerCuts - but that would be 1.5 hours, so only helpful for a 2-second trip (which Gateway would then ride - >0% would do for that), but for a dug-through-cable 4+hour powercut its probably not going to be enough.

But if I can discharge from 10% to 0% twice a day - from PV sun-down to Off Peak and from Off Peak end to Sun Up that's 20% extra discharge per day. If I get that, say, 250 days a year its quite a bit of saving at Peak Rate tariff

 

[Big Dunc]

That is the exact reason that my reserve is 0%.
Actually the situation is worse than you describe, as in the event of a powercut, the powerwall shuts down at 5% to protect itself. So a back up reserve of 10% only gives you 5% of actual reserve.

 

[scdoubleu]

Actually the situation is worse than you describe, as in the event of a powercut, the powerwall shuts down at 5% to protect itself. So a back up reserve of 10% only gives you 5% of actual reserve.

Not quite. There are two SoC values; one reported by the App and another reported by the Gateway via its local API. When the App reports 0%, the Gateway reports 5%. Conversely at full charge they both report 100%. So the App %age refers to usable SoC and the Standby Reserve is relative the that.

I usually have my backup reserve at 15% in the App, for which the Gateway reports 19.25%.

 

[Big Dunc]

I was just going from what it said on the Tesla website. Anyway, If I was concerned about powercut protection I would have it set a lot higher.

 

[opieor]

I emailed Tesla support a couple of weeks back as I did not have the EV charging option in my Powerwall settings. I got a reply stating they were looking into it. Today I couldn’t connect to my Powerwall through the app for 10 minutes or so (Powerwall offline, please reconnect message) and when it did come back online (no action on my part) lo and behold I now have the EV charging option enabled!

That's really helpful. Can you let me have a note of the email address you contacted them on?

 

[Tonybvi]

That's really helpful. Can you let me have a note of the email address you contacted them on?

I found the address after ploughing through the various Powerwall support options on the Tesla app. After descending through the options and going for the “more” options you hopefully will eventually come across a log in page where I logged in and submitted my query. However the replies I got (one confirming they were investigating the issue and the next confirming I now had the option) came from Heidi at “[email protected]”. You can use this to get in touch but I presume you would have to give all sorts of details about the PW. By going down the log in route they already know everything about you!

 

[opieor]

Brilliant, thanks

 

[K-ev 1]

Hi there. Apologies if this has been asked before. In the US (and perhaps other parts of the world) it is possible to limit the amount that a charging car will drain Powerwalls by adjusting the 'EV charging' options within the Powerwall settings menu. I don't have that option, and am interested whether anyone in the UK has it? It is discussed in these threads in the energy forum:

How to prevent charging cars from battery

how to disable vehicle charging during grid outage?

I have our Zappi car charger on the 'Backed up' side of the Gateway so it could charge from solar during a power cut, but would love the option to limit the battery drain if (for instance) there were a power cut over night while the car is charging. The system appears to work by tweaking the supply frequency so is apparently independant of which charger you have.
Thanks

Just received mine

 

[sliyk]

I saw it today as well although it’s just an option and when you click on it nothing happens
Probably because I have zappi and not Tesla charger.

 

[LampyDave]

I saw it today as well although it’s just an option and when you click on it nothing happens
Probably because I have zappi and not Tesla charger.

As you'll have no doubt seen from the rest of the thread it works by adjusting the frequency so works irrespective of your charger type. I also have a Zappi and it works fine with that - the car refuses charge when the frequency drops instead of the charger doing anything. It only does anything if there is a grid outage (real or simulated) so takes a bit of effort to test.