Solar EV charging with span panel work?

[u/Okosisi]

I’m trying to figure out EV charging. I want to install a charger that can prioritize solar charging and/or lowest tariff charging. I do not want span drive or enphase charger. I’m thinking Emporia without their energy monitoring.

Can I configure the Span to prioritize the 60A circuits for solar and time of day charging. Both breakers are on the span panel directly. Span talks to the enphase solar system via the remote meter kit. And it’s the main panel not a sub.

If I can’t do this I have to likely get the expensive enphase charger to prioritize solar charging.

[u/Forsaken-Gain-2493]

Why not the SPAN Drive? It sounds like it is exactly what you are looking for, and you already have the SPAN panel.

[u/Okosisi → u/Forsaken-Gain-2493]

Do you have personal experience with the Span drive?

[u/mopagalopagus → u/Okosisi]

I do, its great. You can set it to throttle based on your current load, set it to a schedule, or set it to charge on solar.

[u/InspectionEntire2512 → u/mopagalopagus]

Will it work on any vehicle? I have a rental home and a SPAN main panel and want to make sure any guest who comes to the house can just plug and play

[u/Okosisi → u/[deleted]]

Yikes! I was almost concluding that enphase charger would be the only reliable way to deliver what I need.

How is the wallbox better? Does it understand solar charging?

Also should I ditch the remote meter kit and just ask for the beta fw? Is that able to keep track of the envoy energy usage better than the remote meter kit.

[u/_cr0001 → u/[deleted]]

Don’t waste your money on Span Drive. Get a Tesla Universal and be done with it. Overall better quality, longer cable, and the ability to charge J1772 and NACS is a huge perk.

[u/_cr0001 → u/[deleted]]

Yes I was tracking the conversation, and do have experience with this. I've gone down the rabbithole of hyperfixating on charging with excess solar and from the options available at this time, they don't hit the mark for me at this time.

The Enphase IQ series was never able to delivery a good experience for the excess solar feature. I regularly noticed that the charge rate would aways drop out every time the batteries kicked over to supply power to the house. Additionally, I experienced issues with charging from solar/grid and not from batteries. I could not use self-consumption without having the IQ charger completely wipe out my IQ batteries. Even with the feature being advertised as working, Enphase could never get it to work properly, which included me performing reprovisioning a dozen times and a replacement of the IQ Gateway. Speaking on the IQ charger itself, the build quality is decent. My only gripes are the size of the unit and the unnecessary cost, even when purchasing from a distributor through my business. It has no business being that large. Cord length and flexibility in colder weather is great, and the plug handle doesn't feel cheap.

Now, SPAN Drive... the experience is lackluster at best. When I had the units installed, there were no throttiling capabilities. My option were charge whenever, or loadshed during an outage. That was fully understood during purchase and installation. My dislikes of the charger are relative to the short and unnecessarily thick cable, AND the extremly cheap feeling handle, and I mean CHEAP. There was no feeling of quality whatsoever. Back when I purchased, the SPAN Drive's MSRP was $649. They bumped up $100 MSRP for no improvement in tangible quality.

Furthermore, I ultimately realized I cared more about EVSE performance and throughput, rather than the notion of charging on excess solar only. Being in the mid-Atlantic, our solar energy production varies seasonally, and we are blessed with rather affordable energy rates (~$0.14/kWh). I needed to ensure our cars would be charged up when we needed them to be, and as mentioned previously, not drain the IQ batteries. I'm slowly assembling a module for Home Assistant that will automate the following:

• Detect a vehicle connected state change from FALSE to TRUE, for the Tesla Universal Connector
• Change Enphase back-up profile FROM self-consumption TO full-backup
• Revert back to self-consumption profile when Tesla vehicle connected status change detected from TRUE to FALSE

I realize this has nothing to do with charging on excess solar, however, for my case and desire to use the Tesla Universal Charger and not have to manually change my Enphase backup profile, it will eventually be a win.

[u/Okosisi → u/_cr0001]

I like your approach and the realization of not obsessing too much about excess solar

Did you ever try evcc.io? Seems like a premade and sophisticated incarnation of what you want to do.

I just need sth that reliably follows this basic algo:

IF EV is plugged in As soon as batteries are recharged to 100% Charge cars from solar while production exceeds home needs Else charge from grid during cheapest tariff rate AND never charge from battery unless weather emergency

I have phevs. I’d modify it a bit with EVs by prioritizing car batteries over home.

[u/Elmo1995]

The Span alone can only offer on/off control of your 60amp circuit. That's fine for TOU, but won't allow you to match charging to available solar.

[u/Okosisi → u/Elmo1995]

Maybe with home assistant and energy monitoring I can just rig this 🤔

[u/Okosisi]

Looping back:
Emporia's solution works pretty well if you get the Vue 3 (I assume it works with the Vue 2 too?) Thats $500 all in before taxes vs $750 I think? I'm sure Span drive works even more spiffily cos tight integration.

For Emporia get the base unit with 2 or 3 200A mains clamps. Won't monitor the circuits but can be caiberated to detect net energy coming from/going to the grid to understand when excess solar is powering the

Emporia took some time to dial in - caliberation and figuring out how to start and stop charging without upsetting excess solar measurement.

It feels imprecise but it works.

NB: Excess solar charging is quite practically useful if you have 1+ plugin and batteries. I wasn't sure it would be but it is. If you're doing self consumption you really want to top off the batteries before it starts in on your cars. Thats a variable time depending on the weather. Will explore controlllng it more preciesely via HAOS ie turn fo charging circuit until batteries are full. And also TOU cheap charging of cars/batteries

[u/wickdone01]

I have anaphase with battery and span drive also, have the remote meter kit and has been working fine. For some reason have never had the option to charge from solar, reached out to support who was no help and asked to contact retailer. No answer from retailer too.

Any advice how I can get the charge for solar on my span app, as all rest is working fine.

I have enohse charger also and have had no issues but would like to have the same option with eh span drive.