My Powerwall3 maxes out at 5kW charge rate when the sun is out. If my solar gen is 7kW, the remaining 2kW goes to the grid, but it’s generally wasted because in California, you get paid pennies for grid exports (most of the time). That extra power 2kW would be better utilized charging my EV, but there’s no option to do that currently, because the solar can only charge the battery to a specified % (and rest to grid) or once the battery is charged to its specified amount, then it’ll charge my EV.
Can there be an option on “solar tracking/charge priority” to set the battery % AND an option to charge on excess of “max limit of battery charge rate” while the battery is charging to that set battery %?
Hi @bryancwli24 . Charge HQ already does what you want. Provided the excess solar that is leftover when the Powerwall is charging is greater than the minimum EV charge rate for your setup, it should charge the EV. If it’s not doing that then please provide the date and time and we can take a look. Cheers.
Good to know it’s a function. I will take a closer look a record the times if it’s not working as intended. I may have been looking initially at a time when the solar exceeded 5kW but not high enough to start charging the EV.
Be aware that there can be some delays while Charge HQ is “watching” what your battery is doing, before deciding how to charge the EV. It may take a few minutes for the EV charging power to be adjusted to the correct level. In some cases it can take quite a few minutes to “ramp” the EV power the correct level, although usually it’s quicker than that.
Understood. So just to confirm what you’re stating is ChargeHQ capability and the scenario I’m thinking of:
- I set my Charge Priority to “battery to 80%”, so that PW3 battery charges before EV
- Sun’s out and producing 7kW, but my PW3 battery charging maxes at 5kW
- My PW3 battery is currently at 50% charge (still being prioritized over EV, per the battery charge priority of 80%), but EV “will still” charge at 2kW since ChargeHQ software detects maxed out PW3 charge rate? And technically, my EV “should” start charging at solar production of 6.4kW in this scenario?
@bryancwli24 yep that’s correct. Once Charge HQ detects that your Powerwall is not taking all the excess solar, it will try to take what’s left, provided it is above the minimum charge rate (which is ~1.4 kW assuming single phase charging)
