Hi. I currently have GivEnergy Solar and 9.5 Battery connected via GivEnergy hybrid inverter. all working as it should for the past year, electricity provider Octopus on their smart tariff.
I have an electric car coming shortly and have managed to source a Zappi EV at good price. Main reason not keeping it all GivEnergy being the GivEnergy charger does not integrate with the Octopus Smart tariffs and doesnt appear any new on when it will. Does anyone have this set up and can give me any set up tips/ advice please or tips generally for integrating with a third party charger. Ideal scenario being my solar and battery continue to work as they have and excess Solar in the day goes to the car once my GivEnergy battery is charged. What I dont want is the EV charger draining my GiveEnergy battery down, ideally car will charge from the grid at the 7p night rate (and probably my givEnergy battery to during the winter months). At minute Octopus generally export from my battery at the higher export rate 4pm-7pm which is all good.
Phil works for Octopus (and goes by the handle @AgilePhil on their forum). Here’s link to an article on his personal site which is a good place to start: https://www.philiprsteele.co.uk/post/cars-solar-panels-batteries-ct-clamps-and-henley-blocks
Thank you. Interesting read. I don’t think it’s quite as my set up which is feed taken from meter prior to main consumer unit which goes to a secondary consumer unit which was installed for the solar/ battery (and air source we had installed same time). That secondary consumer unit it in an upstairs cupboard and meter/ other consumer unit under stairs. With the Zappi can get Harvi device to transmit CT clamp readings so I’m thinking one under stairs reading main feed just prior to meter so takes account of both consumer boxes. Then second Harvi in my upstairs cupboard and just what readings I would take?
the simplest solution is for your EV charger to be wired first, immediately on the meter tails, and then the CT clamps for your battery be after that on the feed to the other house consumer units, ASHP, inverter, battery, etc.
that way the inverter doesn’t “see” your EV load at all.
anything else will be a pain as you’ll have to set your battery to stop discharging when the EV is charging. Harvi’s and all that won’t help.
And assuming you are on a fixed export rate such as 15p outgoing there’s no benefit to charging the EV from solar, just charge in the overnight cheap rate and export your solar
Thanks Geoffrey. It’s not an ideal solution for me I’m afraid as my solar/battery splits via Henley blocks after meter with my main CU under stairs which is really awkward for anyone to get to as have storage built in before we moved into the house. Any feed from here also involves holes in downstairs ceiling/ flooring come up. I know as we had this for the solar and air source to be fitted last year so have the consumer unit for that and our hybrid inverter in what would have been a boiler cupboard at top of stairs. This consumer unit is 100amp so installer can take feed from that consumer unit and exit straight at the rear of the house. I’ve added a harvi downstairs between meter and the Henley block splitting feeds to the two CUs so that one should be all good. I have bought 2nd harvi and 2 more ct clamps so wonder if anything with these around my solar/ battery feeds will asssist the system and prevent battery drain to car or it’s a case of setting charging schedules so both battery and car charge overnight and thereby prevent car discharging battery. I normally export from battery 4pm-7pm when get the much higher export rate
the harvi and its clamps will help your EV charger know what solar is generated and being used by the house, but don’t help your inverter to know to not discharge into the car.
In short if you can’t go down the wiring route then you will have to instruct your battery to charge or to at least pause discharge when you are charging the EV. If you are on a predictable tariff you can set this up in advance on the inverter, if you are on Octopus Intelligent Go then you’ll really need third party products to help you as Octopus schedule the charging for you.
I use predbat that runs in Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi or similar and that can control your battery and inverter and car charger together, but its not for everyone as there is a bit of setup effort