Zappi charger with Solar

[Sidicks]

I left my Taycan connected to my Zappi charger for a few days, with the charger set to ECO+ mode, with the expectation that the car would only be topped up with energy when the Solar panels were generating more than the house actually needed (subject to the 1.4kw minimum).

I was therefore surprised to see my car had topped itself up overnight (when clearly the solar panels were not generating much!!!). Has anyone else come across this? Do some other modes take priority over ECO+? Do I need to endure that there are no schedules set up?

Thanks

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[AlexR]

Eco ++ and set it on the App to only take solar. It works so well on a sunny day- we've a 7KW set-up and will charge 100% on a summer's day even with house being run etc. The "free" driving (ignore the £10k set-up) is very satisfying.

 

[bn8959]

Maybe a scheduled boost set on the Zappi for overnight?

 

[Midlifecrisis]

Do you have a solar battery system? If so, did it somehow use that and interpret it as solar? Unless you have a myenergi inverter I don’t think a Zappi can tell the difference between solar and battery power

 

[Sidicks]

Do you have a solar battery system? If so, did it somehow use that and interpret it as solar? Unless you have a myenergi inverter I don’t think a Zappi can tell the difference between solar and battery power

The Tesla Powerwall isn’t actually connected yet (due to be done on Tuesday next week), so I don’t think that explains it!

 

[Sidicks]

Maybe a scheduled boost set on the Zappi for overnight?

Yes, I think there might be something there by default, which I will remove.

 

[Eugene88]

I left my Taycan connected to my Zappi charger for a few days, with the charger set to ECO+ mode, with the expectation that the car would only be topped up with energy when the Solar panels were generating more than the house actually needed (subject to the 1.4kw minimum).

I was therefore surprised to see my car had topped itself up overnight (when clearly the solar panels were not generating much!!!). Has anyone else come across this? Do some other modes take priority over ECO+? Do I need to endure that there are no schedules set up?

Thanks

Make sure no schedule and no profile overdue from the car. Then set up zappi to charge only eco+ with no boost scheduled (they usually scheduled overnight).

 

[Sidicks]

Well, my Tesla battery is now up and working, but I still haven't got eco+ mode working properly:

As we have a 3-phase supply, the Zappi system is looking for a surplus of 1.4kw on each phase before it will charge the car.

I am able to use Eco mode where the car will charge using Solar power ,plus as much battery power as needed to hit the 4.2kw minimum.

However, even when the solar panels are generating more than 4.2kw, in eco+ mode the Zappi is refusing to charge the car and instead is sending power to the grid (if the battery is fully charged).

I no longer have any default profiles in the Boost (Scheduled) mode.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

 

[Sidicks]

On an unrelated note, my car switched over to regen braking after less than 300miles - presumably this means my heavy right foot bedded the physical brakes in pretty quickly?!

 

[Sidicks]

Right, I’m even more confused about my set up now!

Currently the set-up is working perfectly - during the day the solar panels generate more power than needed to run the house and the excess is used to top up the battery. Later in the evening, or when the clouds come, the Solar isn’t generating sufficient power and so the battery provides the extra. In neither case are we downloading power from the grid.

So far, so good.

I am told that we need an extra connection between the house and the battery, but in the event of a power cut, the power from the battery will only be directed to one phase of our three phase supply. So we will need to ensure that the essential items in the house are on that phase.

Can someone explain why these restrictions apply with the battery in the event of a power cut, but not in normal conditions (even when no power is being taken from the grid in either example)?

Apologues if this is straightforward, but I really don’t understand this stuff!

 

[bn8959]

I presume its because the meter is measuring your net use - so what would be happening is that you would actually be exporting on one phase, but importing on the others, but still have a net export - so it would no show your drawing power.

However in the scenario where the battery is powering a proportion of your use, then it can only do that on the one phase - so technically you could end up drawing from the grid and not battery if you arent drawing on the same phase as the battery.

Only way round that is 3 AC coupled batteries - one per phase. But even then, only the one could charge from solar.

It is confusing though.

 

[Sidicks]

I presume its because the meter is measuring your net use - so what would be happening is that you would actually be exporting on one phase, but importing on the others, but still have a net export - so it would no show your drawing power.

However in the scenario where the battery is powering a proportion of your use, then it can only do that on the one phase - so technically you could end up drawing from the grid and not battery if you arent drawing on the same phase as the battery.

Only way round that is 3 AC coupled batteries - one per phase. But even then, only the one could charge from solar.

It is confusing though.

Thanks, that makes sense.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

There may be other safety concerns coming into play and you might have got only part of the requirement. We have a similar setup on a single phase supply but we’re told that in the event of a power cut we can have it setup (somehow, not properly explained) so that a critical circuit can have power. I am not sure what is required here but it was something to do with ensuring that power cannot go back to the grid if there is a power cut so that anyone working on the lines can’t get electrocuted.

Currently we haven’t done this so I don’t know what will actually happen in the event of a power cut. Time will tell and we might look into the critical circuit thing, maybe for heating and lights

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