Ioniq 5 Charging with Zappi night rate and Solar

Psygnosis

So we have an order in for a new Ioniq 5 and have 6.8kw of solar panels. It'll be probably around 9 months before we get the car. Just wondering if the below would be possible.

i'm wondering if the following is possible to have the car plugged in during the day I think its called eco + to just take energy from solar excess going back to the grid. Then have another schedule to charge the car at night rate electricity.

zg3409

I believe what you suggest is possible but I have not actually set it up that way myself.

Note you typically need a minimum of 1.4kW export excess before the car will start to charge at a rate of 1.4kW up to a Max of 7kW.

During each day you may say get 10kWh into the car, giving about 50km range from the sun days it's plugged in around mid-day and it's somewhat bright/sunny. That's only about 1 or 2 euro so not massive savings and if car is full, it cannot take any more.

In terms of night rate if car is filled every night, it won't have 10kWh free to take during the day. Another complication is home solar need a "smart" meter to get payments for export back from the grid, which is a different meter from night rate. Rumors are payments may start later this year but may be capped very low at max 200 euro a year. If you stick with night rate then you forgo any export payment. That said I think night rate deals are still going to be better than most "smart" deals.

That said charging your EV is very cheap either way compared to petrol, and so it's small money in greater terms. I estimated with a daily commute of 110km, charging at night rate, 20kWh of energy each night only cost about 400 euro a year for all "fuel" for the car. If your commute is less, "fuel" costs will be less.

denismc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058249965/ioniq-5-charging-with-zappi-night-rate-and-solar

That's exactly how I have mine set up, Eco+ for the surplus solar and then top up with night rate.

I usually set the car up to charge to 80% on night rate which then leaves room for some solar during the day.

It's very easy to change the max charge % with the Bluelink app

ECO_Mental

Like yourself, I have solar PV (6.1 kWp) have a Zappi installed but I am getting a better car than yours an ID4.....🤗 Anyway what you can do also and I have read this from another poster on Boards is that in Eco+ mode is set the amount of solar required before it starts charging. You can set the Green level percentage, what this means is that if you set it at 50% it will only require 0.7kW of solar excess and will top up the extra 0.7kW from the grid to get the min 1.4 kW charging limit.

For example below here is my main ESB incomer and below the line I am exporting. So as you can see this was a decent enough day 32 kWh but it was up and down lots of clouds but when the sun was out it was good. Anyway if the export limit was set at 1.4 kW (red line) it would have stopped charging a good bit during the day...but if you set it at 1kW (red line) then it would have been charging most of the day. NOW you will be importing 0.4 kW but for a system of your size like mine this will be minimal. Also there are time limits on the Zappi also for example its has to be over 1.4 kW export for more than 30 seconds setting a bit lower export limit will negate this.

Anyway I have not tested this as I don't have an EV yet 😁 its waiting to get on a ship in Germany at the moment but should have it early July.

n97 mini

One thing to bear in mind is that if it's a very intermittently cloudy day (like recently), it's possible the car will start and stop charging many times. It's unknown really at this point what sort of wear that will put on the contactors. They were possibly not designed for that level of use.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119197272#Comment_119197272

VW have designed it in to their cars and obviously the charge points have it designed in.

It will be more wear, of course.

ECO_Mental

So if you set the export limit to low enough (1kW or even 0.75kW) it wont switch off as much as if it were set at 1.4kW. Obviously you will have to import the difference but I think that should be small enough. This again is dependent on your PV system and the larger systems 5-6+kWp have an advantage in that even on dull days they should be generating enough to kick in.

Very dull day here where I am and for most of the day I was exporting around the 0.75 -1kW.....you can see a few spikes down that might mess things up.

As I said I have the Zappi installed PV system installed all I need in the bloody car to test all this out

WattsUp

I have this setup and yes ECO+ will charge it during the day. However some cars get annoyed at the stop start nature and refuse charge after a number of stop/starts. Opel/Peugeot certainly don't like it and will not restart until unpluged and re-plugged. Tesla seems happy but i suspect it is not good for charger and car contactors to be opening and closing so much. They are mechanical and can wear out over time

I have started using ECO from about 10am to 7pm for now. 95% of the time there is enough power (6kW installed) that is is not importing but it will take from the grid to maintain 1.4kW. You can also mess with ECO+ and MGL to get similar effect. If MGL is set at 60% then as long as 60% of the minimum charge (60% of 1.4kW = .84kW) is from solar it will keep the charge going with 40% from grid. At this time of year that would drastically reduce the stop/starts. Also there are start and stop timers that can be lengthened to allow Zappi keep charging for a few minutes even if sun goes behind cloud and also to not start up just because the sun peeped out for 31 seconds. Defaults are 30 seconds on each.

Finally you can set schedules like "ECO" during day and "FAST" at night........Even handier is smart boost where you plug in car on ECO or ECO+ and tell app you want X kW by a certain time. It will the take all it can from solar but will switch to fast mode just in time to have delivered a guaranteed of X kW by the time you need it.

Example. You plug in at midday today and tell it you want 30kW by 7am tomorrow. Then it get 9kW of PV during the remainder of the day but still needs 21kW. It will switch to fast at 4am to make sure you have the 30kW you requested by delivering 7kW an hour for 3 hours.

WattsUp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119197625#Comment_119197625

I think you are describing "export margin". Setting that to 1kW would mean that it would not start charging until you were actively exporting 1kW+ and would stop if you only exporting 999w. I don't think it's what you want that as would export lots of power and would need to be getting 2.4kW before car would even start charging at 1.4kW. The MGL, minimum green level, is I think what you mean where it will supplement PV would some power from grid to keep minimum 1.4kW rate going. This reduces the stop starts.

slave1

If clouds appear it’s not as if the car releases the contactors immediately, they remain engaged for some time depending on the make so there will not be constant clicking with them opening and closing and excessive wear, I have 30minutes in the back of my head for Teslas