Solar + Battery + EV Charger + Hot Water Load - Hard Lessons Learned
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- The trials and tribulations of solar tech tinkerer Tom as he tussles with coordinating his solar power system's inverter, home battery, electric car charger, hot water load and electricity provider to work together the way he wants.
It's been quite a journey for Tom, who offers some very valuable advice for others considering attempting to do the same.
If anyone watching this video has succeeded in solving the challenges mentioned in getting the various different-brand components to communicate with each other properly, leave a comment and let us know how you've done it!
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Excellent to hear and see how automation does not work with multiple manufacturers.
Great video Fin.
Great to hear and see real in field problems.
Use a small low powered computer to do the coordination. I have one talking to solaredge inverter via modbus. I'm hoping to use the same to talk to a battery / inverter combo, which arrives next month. It switches hot water on during solar exports or off peak if solar was insufficient. It ensures a full hot water reheat every day. Reasonably easy to do.
There is also an Amber integration for Home Assistant so you could easy control your load based upon the current rate
I use this, home assistant and automations would be the best way to go. Homeassistant is great 'glue'
The practise of companies doing whatever they can to lock you into their ecosystem really needs to be regulated, its one thing when you can't use your batteries for your power tools with another brand even though they all have the same tech but for something as important as an electrical system with so many options there really needs to be some kind of protocol enforced.
Having a similar surrounding environment I would suggest switching the inverter. One which is compatible with the Sonnen battery and allows the automation of some relais. Victron and Fronius could ev. do it. But real flexibility in terms of automation you only get with home assistant, where you can integrate almost everything. I control everything via HA, battery SOC by weather forecast and consumption history, EV battery charging and the HVAC.
My sympathy to the home owner and his woes. I was very recently warned by a local Solar installer about this very issue when I was exploring the possibility of expanding my existing 11.88kW solar + 2 x PW2 system to include an additional fluid battery
We have to push some limits to understand the challenges of our energy future. This will allow us to have a solution before it becomes a problem for many
Fascinating video. Thank you both very much. We are currently facing very similar decisions -- about selection of new larger solar array, new invertor, home battery and EV charger -- so it was great to listen to the synchronisation problems that you encountered. Hopefully it will help us in our conversations with possible solar installers. Such videos really are a public service!!
Looks like the solar industry needs to get its act together and create an open integration standard for all this so that everything is integrated to the requirements of the national grid. Incredible really that that hasn’t happened yet. Cars and domestic batteries ought to be part of the national power infrastructure, optimising power and cost for all components. This is a really great video. Thanks guys.
Most quality off-grid solar chargers/inverters/batteries incorporate CANBUS which is easy to program.
As well as the charger communicating with the battery BMS, you can also prioritise loads and sources. e.g. prioritise solar over grid/generator over battery as an uninterruptible supply and prioritise fridge/freezer over aircon when battery gets low.
Unfortunately unless the government mandates it there would never be an open standard for all this stuff. The manufacturers are incentivised to make their equipment NOT talk with another manufacturer’s equipment. That way they suck you into using only their equipment if you want proper integration.
@@David-lr2vi None of these manufacturers are Australian. All that Aussie government mandates would do is limit availability in Australia and increase prices. There should be a worldwide standard.
@@simongross3122 Well yes it would have to be an international standard. My comment was mostly just pointing out that it’s nearly always in a company’s best interests to not cooperate with its competitors so the only way a cohesive standard will happen is if it’s regulated by government.
@@David-lr2vi Thanks. I sort of agree with you. But it is sometimes in a company's interests to cooperate - let's say one company makes solar panels and another makes inverters. It is in both companies' interest to cooperate.
Also, sometime government regulations serve as a barrier to new entrants to the market. I've seen this many times. In these cases, the established giants of the industry push for ever greater regulation to close out newer, more agile competitors.
So yes, I do agree with you, but it's not always simple. I do think that some regulation and standarisation would be better than none. Open standards are even better.
Great video. I guess this is the downside of early step changes in tech and hardware. All manufacturers are scrambling for market share and installers may not be up to speed with optimal integrations. Sure is exciting times and it won't be too long before all this is sorted. Can't wait!
I would suggest installing Home Assistant on a pc or Raspberry Pi. There's a plugin for almost everything. In my home Home Assistant controls almost all my devices.
Absolutely!
I would not be using the battery to heat the hot water - just use a solar diverter for that and heat directly from solar using DC. Zappi also make a solar diverter so at least the car charger and hot water will talk to each other. Nearly all the problems require some kind of microcontroller and relay setup - you could do it all with one of the Arduinos if you understand programming, but as others have pointed out things like Home Assistant can work by setting up routines. which is basically an easy way to program things. There is of course the brute force method. Wire a separate sub panel for the circuits you want the battery to supply and keep the car charger and high inductive loads like air conditioners and pool pumps off those circuits. This has the advantage of allowing the battery to power the home in a blackout. Also 2.5KW is just about unworkable in a modern home - it's one of the huge downsides of that particular Sonnen battery. You really want a minimum of 5KW with a higher surge rating. For both charging and discharging. Unfortunately the battery is the most expensive element in this setup so not an easy fix.
Thanks for this, very informative.
Just a thought...why not replace some of the PV panels with PVT, heating water directly from the panels would greatly offset the slight loss of Electrical output of the PVT units, allowing the EV to be charged.
The zappi will integrate with either AC or DC batteries and specifically has an avoid drain function. It would seem this zappi (and Finn’s for that matter) hasn’t been configured correctly.
Interesting video ..... good lessons learnt
Wow ... all that effort with so little return 😞
I know there is a price difference but I run solar and two Powerwall 2 batteries. The Powerwalls can be installed outside (in a protected location such as the Sonnen featured in the video without needing extra cabinets) and don't need a separate power circuit to back-up specific appliances in the case of a grid failure. If the grid fails I literally have to do NOTHING and everything keeps running ... including a larger split AC and two smaller splits on a hot day.
Obviously on a hot night I have to ration the splits to ensure I can last the night on batteries alone but during a hot, sunny day I can keep everything going regardless of what the grid is doing.
There is much criticism of battery systems and whether they are worth it or not. I did a lot of homework and asked a lot of questions before plunging into the battery market and I am very happy with what I now have powering my house. I might add that I went through a local Adelaide provider/installer .... who weren't the absolute cheapest by any means but if you go by "you get what you pay for", I paid for a system that does what I want it to do and provides plenty of power to everywhere I want it, when I want it.
The objectives mentioned in this video can most likely be fully met with a combination of Home Assistant, High Power WiFi Switch (Sonoff), OpenEnergyMonitor, a bunch of plug-in Smart Switches, some Shelly Relay Modules and appropriately written automation rules. Also required is reliable WiFi in your home.
The main problem is that running Home Assistant requires a pretty high level of computer and software expertise - it definitely is not something that anyone can do.
Industry support for open automation varies a lot. Some manufacturers publish their interfaces and protocols and at least one inverter manufacturer allows their devices to be auto-detected by Home Assistant. On the other hand, there are manufacturers who are doing everything possible to prevent access to data including encrypting the (ModBus) protocol. Most (?) provide some sort of access via a proprietary phone app but no way to interface to a smart-home hub. Some provide access but only via a cloud service - this means your automations won´t work when your Internet is down.
Calling for standardization is probably not the best strategy because tomorrow´s technology will most likely not fit into yesterday´s standard.
However, what would work is if manufacturers published their interfaces, protocols and APIs -- then 3rd party developers will be empowered to provide integrated solutions.
I am sure the power cables should be able to carry digital signals to tell the grid ENDS what to do.
Grid ENDS are the buildings and homes.
You could add Alpha ESS to that list, they seem to have the complete package with a web based monitoring system.
Get an iotawatt, CT clamp all interesting circuits.
Use Home assistant to read the iotawatt.
Home assistant can do Modbus.
Home assistant to read Amber price
Add the logic to turn on/off based on the market/generation/battery
Hey Fin have your tried ambers smart shift program. Is this the energy arbitrage you can do with compatibility batteries?
This customer is the funniest 😅😅
This is really a switching problem. The governments need to be switched. In Victoria, we had an electricity supplier designed by a civil engineer and we had one marketer who also supplied the electricity and everything was organized. It got redesigned by an advertising agent and now the engineers have been replaced with sales persons sellling more plans (all selling the same electricity) than you can shake a stick at and politicians on their knees pleading with brown coal stations to keep that smoke coming out of the chimneys.
💯
Solar quotes, a zappi 1 and a Tesla powerwall2 and you want to stop draining the battery. Zappi 1 on eco ++and settings for your powerwall2 energy reserved for grid outages, move the slider to 100% .but your Tesla powerwall2 has to be fully charged and your home will work as a solar power only home.
Don't forget to switch the slider on the powerwall2 back to 25% reserved for blackouts when you've finished charging the car.
Does the Powerwall 2 with its smart integration assist with systems like Amber to maximize your arbitrage?
I'm not that experienced with it but could you use something like Ifttt (if this then that) I guess the amber, solar edge, sonnen, zappi apps would need to be compatible.
The biggest problem with solar or other environmental source is the power storage. The cost of battery is way too high considering that you have to change it due to reducing storage capacity over time.
when electric vehicles, EV, are to integrate into the grid this will be a critical matter.
The car will have to have its computer talking to the grid, then the car can plug in anywhere and take out its home solar feedin.
Mongrel system. Obviously an early adopter so good on him. There are whole home solutions now and more coming to the market. I honestly don’t know why Sonnen are so highly regarded!
I'm not connected in anyway but I do follow the "Off Grid Garage" RUclips channel, also out of Australia and he appears to have some answers with regard to your problems..........
Andy has a basic off grid system happening. Not grid connected, and not in anyway a help to this guy.
Good work Tom.
Span Meter Panel with a Span EV charger. Just came across a review after doing some research. If you live in the US. Costs a fair bit.
I think this was poorly done.
I have 6.6kw of solar panels with a 5kw hybrid inverter with 48v battery input. I have a 42kwh battery that is managed by the inverter without any messing around.
I also have solar collectors to heat up the water. My hot water solar collectors only get sun until 1pm. I have a timer that turns the hot water at 2pm while there us still sun in case the water is njot hot enough.
And I charge the car from controlled load because until recently my FIT was the same as buying from controlled load which doesn't wear out the battery.
For electricity connection I am almost self sufficient which means I am only concerned with getting maximum FIT regardless of the cost of buying. The only thing that would make me change providers would be to get high feed in if I could feed during peak demand and get more money for feed in but currently there seems to be no option for this.
I installed Microcare solar components and had none of the issues
Thanks for this informative video, I had been thinking about how to manage this complexity once we have a battery installed in our home. To simplify the operation of flexible load assets, and minimise peak TOU consumption, would it be useful to 1. set the operation of the assets based on the typical solar production (perhaps split between winter and non-winter periods) with an additional off-peak period to accommodate days when there is insufficient solar, and 2. Set the battery to charge fully each day (before solar is utilised in the home) and discharge only during TOU peak periods?
Step one, replace the hot water system with a heat pump system, most of them have a built in timer.
So his problem is smart things that are different brands and can't talk to each other....
Eg a fronius inverter and byd battery, then fronius car charger and fronius omni control for hot water.
We really need AC that can be told to increase/decrease temperature to increase usage at peak export/ inverter limiting times from export limit.
I've got 3 CT clamps. One of Solar, Powerwall, Grid. The setting to not discharge from battery works great. It worked well on Zappi V1 before warranty replacement and now have V2.
My only issue is I can't get the zappi to "steal" the charge from the powerwall (aka charge car first)
Good to hear it can work. I'll need to have another look at my Zappi configuration.
Thank you for your comment Scott. Now we have MyEnergi Harvi that enables us to have a better battery output control and with the eco setting of Zappi we can still use a bit of energy from the battery
@@iBiTomi I haven't tinkered with the settings for so long but in eco+ mode I'm 90% sure we don't drain the battery at all (after the 60 second countdown delay we have)
I can't find the switched in device does anyone have a link please
Thanks for the video. Has Tom looked at Victron equipment?
What a messy situation. Surely this isn’t too difficult to solve by some company ie an opportunity to make some $
Our system is design to meet our energy needs in winter but generates more than enough in the other parts of the year which is the problem if you are exposed to the spot market as we are. We can simply eliminate this issue if we use conventional electricity retailer and collect $$ for exported electricity. We are talking to a couple tech providers about a solution to this problem
Tesla autobidder - is that a potential solution to the issues raised here?
What about the batteries?
A good video, one question I would like to ask. Why are you charged for exporting excess energy, to the grid, is the Australian supplier completely green. Is the technology they are using not able to cope. I’m sure someone will be able to answer. In the uk the grid is happy to except excess energy.
That particular retailer gives consumers dirct access to the Australian NEM wholesale electricity market. The consumer then pays/receives whatever the market is paying/giving for electricity. Not a green thing just a market thing - dangerous when the market price goes very high or negative and you can turn off your exports - good at other times maybe.
I don't think the Economist understands the question, so I'll try to answer it properly. The Australian market has a substantial excess of solar energy in summer, for fairly short periods each day. The grid is literally swamped with it, so prices go negative to penalise the big producers for feeding at that time (or encourage them not to, depending on your point of view). The UK has the same problem at times with wind, and your prices also go negative sometimes. You have at least one company that has a service like Amber in the UK called Tango. Unless you use one of these market price electricity providers then you don't see this, you just get your standard electricity prices (as we do here in Australia on most ordinary retailers).
Thank you for sharing, you are a designer that discovered a need. How can I help you design a universal unit that can talk to any dum component like a dumb battery or a car charger or a hot water system and to a dumb service electricity meter back to grid ? Do you need funding? Most importantly are you a good designer that can can design and sell to the market a universal unit ?
May be the hot water system manufacturer have less then 2kw heating element and 2kw or less for the battery then 1kw for the house.
This is all very confusing, has there been any way to solve this homeowners problem?
You probably should read some of the comments. I don't know if this homeowner has done so, but a Home Assistant install would do all of the things he wants and talk to all of the devices he wants. And a bunch of other things besides, like all my family has a Home Assistant app on their phone and we all know where each other is on a map without Google or any other cloud provider getting to spy on us.
How much is the SwitchDin?
Am I the o lot one who wants to know what’s in that other box!
Tesla autobider?
Does the Telsa 2 gen battery solve many of these problems?
Yes if you have the Tesla gateway.
The issues the homeowner had was signing up for a battery without understanding what he needed.
Hi Tom, i'm curious if you investigated a vehicle to home connection for the leaf?
Brendan, this solution, a bi-directional charger, is not yet available in Australia at the moment. This type of equipment would need to be approved in Australia , like solar inverters, before we can see them advertised. ANU in Canberra is doing some trials at the moment, and the charger they use is about $11k
Thanks! I'll keep an eye out for them. Pity it costs so much, it would be much easier to sell Leafs to PV owners. I don't have an answer for your integration issues but i think it's a job for a rasberry pi!
@@brendandennis5868 we are working on it
@@iBiTomi They expect certification of V2G in November 2021...........for the Leaf
@@iBiTomi I am working towards implementing a bidirectional charger using standard off the shelf inverters which would get around the certification problem since the inverter is already certified.
I would be interested in talking with you in case we could cooperate.
So a smart inverter dumb battery clearly is the solution.... can't be both smart.
The inverter needs to be smart enough to know the free/negative value power times and automatically charge...
But the battery should not need external charging unless its exporting during bonus rates and importing during negative rates.
The basic problem is overregulation is strangling the rapid roll out of competitive products. Competition would reduce costs, and stop these giant monopolistic companies like SolarEdge - who *want* you to stay in their ecosystem - overcharging for their products. And thwarting the development of cheaper competitive open source hardware> We need regulations to be slashed, so cheaper more affordable hardware can be installed and controlled by open source platforms like Home Assistant. The ACCC should absolutely look into what's going on. Just MO
Holy crap - all this to save $1400 per year on electricity (that's my cost in Melbourne). About $30,000 worth of equipment and a constant hourly anxiety over what's going on - Meh, no thanks. And why keep a dinosaur hot water heater which looms large in the problems - put in a solar boosted heat pump hot water system - after all, money on gear seems no problem.
Having worked in the space a lot, entirely correct. But doing a service for the world as we work out how to make all of this easy!
Seems like a cluster fuck that's best left alone for another few years at least.
Node red anyone?
Isn't vpp going to be a solution to this.
👋 I use node red to integrate Powerwall 2, Amber and Zappi :-)
@@scotty9946 out of interest what communication protocol did you use for this?
Interesting - I'd never heard of it: hackaday.com/2020/01/15/automate-your-life-with-node-red-plus-a-dash-of-mqtt/
@@SolarQuotes been using it home automation and off grid load control for years.
I would install solar but I have no idea how to find a good installer.
May i suggest.... Solar Quotes??? the website of the very channel you are watching. :)
Seems to have a LOT of money, huge amount of solar panels, enormous storage battery, big hot water tank, expensive vehicle, yet very little sense? PS, how does a rich Russian get let in OZ?
Lol he is not Russian, xenophobic man… more probably of Serb or Croatian origin.
😂
Let's say, his Russian so what, it's not nice what your saying.
How disappointing, all this hi tech gear and all this struggle for anything to work or even work properly. Im getting solar put on and im worried about that. To hear about this and the crap you are going through plus to hear that you are a designer of these systems pisses me off to no end. The ordinary people trying to save money and to get more shit thrown at them is unbelievable, sorry to hear this mate.
what kind of moronic government allows a system that charges you for providing clean energy to the system? my aussie brothers and sisters need to choose better when voting. i thought we were messed up!