It's sunny today...

[Simavon]

...and I'm working from home due to a dentist appointment (waiting for the anaesthetic to wear off now). So I plugged the car in and set it to charge to 90% at 12A and soak up some free juice from our solar panels. Winter output has been poor (it's been very cloudy here) but the sun is noticeably higher now and we're getting a lot more peak output on good days.

Given that we have 8kW of max output, in the summer on some days there's enough for 3 days worth of commuting range (best day last year was 63kWh). I'm going to aim to work from home on days when it's forecast to be sunny.

 

[drmarkreid]

Has there been any guidance on low level (trickle) charge approach with Tesla i.e. what's the lowest value that you can set charge Amps to in order to restrict charging to below the output level of the Solar PV array?

 

[LukeT]

... I'm going to aim to work from home on days when it's forecast to be sunny.

Working from home? Or "working from home"? Sunny days have many benefits for the latter. I'm just off out on my bike...

 

[Gatsojon]

We got our system fitted last week and today is by far the best yet (no surprise). A tad over 12 kWh from a 4.88 kWp system, split between SW and SE roofs. An 8 kWp system would be very nice! and that more southerly location too

 

[MrBadger]

what's the lowest value that you can set charge Amps to in order to restrict charging to below the output level of the Solar PV array?

I believe it is 6A. So around the 1.4kW mark, voltage dependent. Hence why the lower limit in Zappi - below iirc 1500W excess, it wont charge in full solar mode - I think that is what the Eco mode helps with.

A tad over 12 kWh from a 4.88 kWp system, split between SW and SE roofs.

Thats not a bad place to be. It all well and good having a high peak, but it doesn't last long, especially post April when things start to hot up. Much better to spread things out for longer even at expense of a lesser peak.

We'll be coming out of the shadows (the dips are some big trees) in a few weeks or so, but as I normally say of this time of year, f-all improvement of f-all is still f-all so long as it covers daytime use (shouldn't have had 3 slices of toast!). Just got last 3 months FiT payment, just shy of £30 - much nicer when its over £200. But it looks like we got our first complete hot water top-up of the season - come late April (till mid October) hot water should be running fully on PV and not just topping up the gas.

​

 

[squarepeg77]

Has there been any guidance on low level (trickle) charge approach with Tesla i.e. what's the lowest value that you can set charge Amps to in order to restrict charging to below the output level of the Solar PV array?

You can set the charge current as low as 5A

 

[Gatsojon]

That's my day. I hope the Mrs did some washing

 

[Simavon]

We got our system fitted last week and today is by far the best yet (no surprise). A tad over 12 kWh from a 4.88 kWp system, split between SW and SE roofs. An 8 kWp system would be very nice! and that more southerly location too

Today we had 17.87kWh. Our system is actually 9.9kWp with an East-West split (almost - West is slightly South of West and East slightly North). Each array feeds a 4kW inverter. We asked if we could have more - no. If we add a Powerwall we'll have to limit it to 3.6kW.

The arrangement does seem to do well in the summer - the prediction is fairly flat May/June/July. I think the E/W orientation counts against in the winter. The E facing inverter is giving 1/2 the output of the W facing in winter on sunny days - must be down to the slightly skewed orientation. In the summer there's a small difference. We had it installed last March so made it into the FIT.

The original proposal was for a much smaller system split E/W limited to 3.6kW as the default. But given the available roof space and high usage, putting a DNO in and getting the larger system made a lot of sense. It's only worked out about 65% more upfront cost but has more than double the capacity => will break even faster. We've already had more than 8MWh output in just under 11 months.