Zappi, charging the car and excess power

[DSMSMR]

OK a BIG question that I hope doesnt make your head explode. You up for it.

I will have a zappi fitted soon, I currently have 5.6kW of solar..... export limit 3.68kW of juice. I also have an EDDI. Can I programme the zappi to only charge the car IF there is excess power being generated AND the export limit has been reached to use up excess power that would just not be used...(unless I put the kettle on etc).

So its a lovely sunny day, EDDI has heated up my water tank 100%, I am generating say 5kW and exporting my max of 3.68kW, so have 1.4kW NOT being used anywhere. IF the car is plugged in and IF its battery is not full, How do I use that excess power floating around in elec never never land?????

Is it possible???

[Paul Drawmer]

I can't answer your question directly, but you might want to make sure that's what you want to do.

The EV needs a minimum power available to charge. When the available power is marginal (showery days or just when light levels are fluctuating) the Zappi will switch on and off according to available power. This means that sometimes there is a lot of switching activity on and off as Zappi is choosing to only charge when there's enough current available, as in the full eco setting.

Because of this extra relay activity, I choose not to use full eco on the zappi to minimise wear on the contactors.

[paradigital]

Given the import rate vs export rate (i.e. my import rate is lower than my export rate on Octopus Intelligent Go / Outgoing Octopus), it makes more financial sense to charge the car and house battery overnight (and run the immersion heater) and to export literally all I can throughout the day.

[DSMSMR]

paradigital said:

Given the import rate vs export rate (i.e. my import rate is lower than my export rate on Octopus Intelligent Go / Outgoing Octopus), it makes more financial sense to charge the car and house battery overnight (and run the immersion heater) and to export literally all I can throughout the day.

What?

[gmaz]

DSMSMR said:

So its a lovely sunny day, EDDI has heated up my water tank 100%, I am generating say 5kW and exporting my max of 3.68kW, so have 1.4kW NOT being used anywhere. IF the car is plugged in and IF its battery is not full, How do I use that excess power floating around in elec never never land?????

The minimum charge rate for a type 2 charger is 1.4kW so it's unlikely you will get any benefit from this scenario. Maybe very rarely at midday on the sunniest of summer days and it will add maybe 10 miles of range if you're lucky.

[DSMSMR]

gmaz said:

DSMSMR said:

So its a lovely sunny day, EDDI has heated up my water tank 100%, I am generating say 5kW and exporting my max of 3.68kW, so have 1.4kW NOT being used anywhere. IF the car is plugged in and IF its battery is not full, How do I use that excess power floating around in elec never never land?????

The minimum charge rate for a type 2 charger is 1.4kW so it's unlikely you will get any benefit from this scenario. Maybe very rarely at midday on the sunniest of summer days and it will add maybe 10 miles of range if you're lucky.

I since learnt that if my energy generated goes down from its max, the zappi will continue to draw power down to 2kW of generated export. So as I export at 12p and import at 9p......

[Silverage]

DSMSMR said:

paradigital said:

Given the import rate vs export rate (i.e. my import rate is lower than my export rate on Octopus Intelligent Go / Outgoing Octopus), it makes more financial sense to charge the car and house battery overnight (and run the immersion heater) and to export literally all I can throughout the day.

What?

This is what we’re planning to do. Charge the batteries overnight at 7p, run the house off the batteries during the day, export anything left in the evening, rinse and repeat.

[DSMSMR]

Silverage said:

DSMSMR said:

paradigital said:

Given the import rate vs export rate (i.e. my import rate is lower than my export rate on Octopus Intelligent Go / Outgoing Octopus), it makes more financial sense to charge the car and house battery overnight (and run the immersion heater) and to export literally all I can throughout the day.

What?

This is what we re planning to do. Charge the batteries overnight at 7p, run the house off the batteries during the day, export anything left in the evening, rinse and repeat.

Which has what to do with an EV??