Deliberately reducing charging rate

[exlatccatsa]

I've searched, but can't find an answer.
I have solar PV which maxes out at 4kw.. giving that the house uses about 500w it would be useful fot the car to charge at 3 - 3.5 kw to use the excess solar. I can't find a way of doing this on the 7kw Ohme charger.
Is there a way for the car to ask for less?

 

[MacJester]

I don’t know about your particular charger, but podpoint throttled mine back to 6kw because of the distance between my main fuse board and the charging point.

 

[MrBadger]

You can set a limit within the car.

 

[Adopado]

I've searched, but can't find an answer.
I have solar PV which maxes out at 4kw.. giving that the house uses about 500w it would be useful fot the car to charge at 3 - 3.5 kw to use the excess solar. I can't find a way of doing this on the 7kw Ohme charger.
Is there a way for the car to ask for less?

The charge point tells the car what it can offer. The car responds to what it is offered and doesn't ask for a particular rate. You can manually reduce the rate on screen in the car if you want to use less than can be offered by the charger.

 

[exlatccatsa]

You can set a limit within the car.

I wondered, but hadn't found anything about it in the manual. Thanks I'll have another look.

 

[exlatccatsa]

I'll try the 3 pin plug option.. I forgot that was "hidden" in the boot that should give 2.3kw which is almost perfect. searching this online almost always is bringing up posts on increaseing charging rate not reducing it.

 

[ThrustSSC]

I've searched, but can't find an answer.
I have solar PV which maxes out at 4kw.. giving that the house uses about 500w it would be useful fot the car to charge at 3 - 3.5 kw to use the excess solar. I can't find a way of doing this on the 7kw Ohme charger.
Is there a way for the car to ask for less?

I have a feeling the Zappi will talk to your solar and find out what it's providing, then talk to the car to throttle it accordingly...

 

[TheManofMead]

I have a feeling the Zappi will talk to your solar and find out what it's providing, then talk to the car to throttle it accordingly...

Sorry to say, no the Zappi will not currently do this. There is an issue charging Tesla's on a Zappi (I have a Zappi, the 'new' 2nd gen one). Currently you either charge at about 1kw or the full 7kw. The Zappi did work perfectly with my wife's old Kona which has gone to make room for her M3P arriving soon. My solar array is 7.5kw (with a 6kw inverter). The Eco setting worked perfectly with the Kona so that the car charge based on a minimum level you could set, which would increase up to the solar array max on sunny days (so not very often haha).

 

[Adopado]

Sorry to say, no the Zappi will not currently do this. There is an issue charging Tesla's on a Zappi (I have a Zappi, the 'new' 2nd gen one).

The Zappi will do it ... it's the car that is currently the problem. There is supposed to be an update (who knows when) to make the M3 work as it's supposed to do when being offered a charge when asleep. If the car was kept awake then it would indeed accept the charge but that's not normally a realistic way of doing it. Other Tesla models don't have this problem I believe.

 

[TheManofMead]

The Zappi will do it ... it's the car that is currently the problem. There is supposed to be an update (who knows when) to make the M3 work as it's supposed to do when being offered a charge when asleep. If the car was kept awake then it would indeed accept the charge but that's not normally a realistic way of doing it. Other Tesla models don't have this problem I believe.

I agree the car is currently the problem. I own a Model S currently and it does not work. Zappi have told me they are working on it.
(As I mentioned in my previous post, I know the Zappi is capable of doing it, which is why I pointed out it worked fine with our Kona).

 

[miimura]

I have heard that leaving the car with Sentry Mode active will keep the car awake and it will therefore respond to all changes in charging station status. Of course, this will increase the standby energy consumption, but if the Zappi variable charging is important, the energy usage is probably worthwhile.

 

[Anubis]

I've searched, but can't find an answer.
I have solar PV which maxes out at 4kw.. giving that the house uses about 500w it would be useful fot the car to charge at 3 - 3.5 kw to use the excess solar. I can't find a way of doing this on the 7kw Ohme charger.
Is there a way for the car to ask for less?

I haven't seen anybody else actually say this...
You can adjust the AMPS in the bottom left hand part of the charging screen settings.
I usually have mine set at 6amps, which gives my 240 Volts x 6 amps = 1.4kW.
I then manually adjust [in the car] it up or down as the excess solar changes during the day.

 

[AndrewGR]

Following a recent conversation with MyEnergy, makers of the Zappi, I downloaded their latest firmware to the hub and my Zappi 2. This after installing 2020.8.1. On those few days since when we have had some sunshine, the Zappi set in Eco+ mode appears to be working as advertised adjusting the charge rate to use only surplus energy from the solar panels. If surplus falls below 1.4 kW it will top up from the grid to 1.4 kW up to the programmed limit and then stop charging if the solar falls too low, Obviously it does this at the end of the day, but also when it gets cloudy. Haven’t yet had the opportunity to see if charging will start again the next day when the sun comes up.

 

[squarepeg77]

Regarding Tesla/Zappi combination, and the car not waking up, does it only affect Model 3? I thought I’d read somewhere that Model S does wake up.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I wondered, but hadn't found anything about it in the manual. Thanks I'll have another look.

It's there

 

[hmy7k]

Following a recent conversation with MyEnergy, makers of the Zappi, I downloaded their latest firmware to the hub and my Zappi 2. This after installing 2020.8.1. On those few days since when we have had some sunshine, the Zappi set in Eco+ mode appears to be working as advertised adjusting the charge rate to use only surplus energy from the solar panels. If surplus falls below 1.4 kW it will top up from the grid to 1.4 kW up to the programmed limit and then stop charging if the solar falls too low, Obviously it does this at the end of the day, but also when it gets cloudy. Haven’t yet had the opportunity to see if charging will start again the next day when the sun comes up.

The Zappi is not able to wake the car up from a deep sleep still, Myenergi are waiting for Tesla to provide an update.
Apart from this issue issue it works well. I am going to set up a schedule in the stats app to pre prep the battery daily at about 9.30 am to wake it up. If necessary I can add another one to wake it up later on too but once it starts charging it should stay awake.

 

[exlatccatsa]

Fixed.. thanks for all the help.. now charging off the solar at about 1 mile an hour.

 

[Battpower]

Sorry to say, no the Zappi will not currently do this. There is an issue charging Tesla's on a Zappi (I have a Zappi, the 'new' 2nd gen one). Currently you either charge at about 1kw or the full 7kw. The Zappi did work perfectly with my wife's old Kona which has gone to make room for her M3P arriving soon. My solar array is 7.5kw (with a 6kw inverter). The Eco setting worked perfectly with the Kona so that the car charge based on a minimum level you could set, which would increase up to the solar array max on sunny days (so not very often haha).

I would be interested in hearing your experience with Zappi. I looked at it when it was first released and could not work out how it could control the charging power in fine steps. I ended up with a different approach, having 9kwp of panels and 12kw available from battery inverters so that even on a moderately sunny day there is usually plenty of power to charge at 7.5kw without drawing from the grid.

I am familiar with other power diverter devices so I know in general how they work, but how does Zappi have fine enough control over charge power to be able to match fluctuations in solar PV output? Or are you saying that it switches between 1kw and 7kw? That sounds a bit of a restriction if it's the case, as it's not so often that you will see 7+kw being exported to the grid. Do you have your Zappi hooked up to an electric water heater? If you are charging the car at 1kw (assuming that's how it works) does the Zappi still divert remaining surplus to domestic water heating?

I think it is more or less on topic for the OP!

 

[hmy7k]

The zappi has a sensor on the incoming mains connection so it knows what is being imported or exported and it then adjusts continuously as surplus changes, so if a kettle is switched on in the house or solar output changes charging will be adjusted automatically.

 

[Battpower]

The zappi has a sensor on the incoming mains connection so it knows what is being imported or exported and it then adjusts continuously as surplus changes, so if a kettle is switched on in the house or solar output changes charging will be adjusted automatically.

That's the part I am familiar with. What I don't know is how precisely it can control the power diverted to charging a car. Immersion heaters are controlled quite precisely to maintain close to zero important / zero export.

Say Zappi senses that you are exporting 2.3 kw, can it have just 2.3 kw to the car or at some point does it have to have the car charge at 7.5kw in order to make use of the 2.3 me that otherwise would 've exported