EV Charging with only solar energy from Sungrow inverter

Solar Inverters
1

Hi

I am looking at getting a complete Solar System installed - comprising Solar Panels + Inverter AND solar batteries.

I am considering two options, EITHER:

  • Sungrow (Inverter + Batteries)
  • Sungrow Inverter + Tesla Powerwall 2

I am planning on buying a Tesla Model 3 car and a Tesla Wall charger.

My house has 3-Phase power.

My understanding from reading online forums, is that only the Tesla App together with the Tesla Powerwall will allow me to charge a Tesla car with excess Solar (ie and avoid using Grid Power)

However, reading the ChargeHQ page, it seems that I can do similar with ChargeHQ even without a Tesla Powerwall.

Is that correct?

Thanks

K

2

Hi,

Either of your proposed systems will allow you to use Charge HQ to charge a Tesla Model 3 from your excess solar energy (that would otherwise be exported to the grid), provided you’re located in Australia.

If you’re outside of Australia, the Sungrow + Battery option won’t work as only the Australian Sungrow API service provides the data we need.

In both cases, since there’s a home battery, your solar production and your grid consumption are monitored. This lets us discover how much excess solar energy remains, so we can set EV charging to match it.

If you install a Powerwall, you would only connect the Powerwall to Charge HQ. If you install a Sungrow Hybrid inverter (with batteries connected to it), you would connect the Sungrow inverter to Charge HQ.

Even though you have 3-phase power at the property, I’d still recommend thinking about installing a single phase EV charger for improved efficiency of solar charging.

Andrew

3

Hi Andrew
Firstly, thanks for such a prompt response to my question!

A couple of further clarifications for my specific case:

  1. I am based in Australia (Gold Coast, Queensland) so should have ample sunshine, and solar will never be in the shade.
  2. I am looking at installing a 13.kWh solar system (probably 13.2Kwh solar panels with a 10kW inverter).
  3. I was planning on also getting a Tesla Wall Charger

So, in my scenario, would a 3-phase wall charger setup be suitable?
(I assume so based on the other forum question you had linked)

Thanks again

4

Sounds like a nice setup!

The other thing to note is that the Sungrow data feed is the slowest of all the inverters we integrate with, updating data every 6-11 minutes, vs every 1 minute for the Powerwall. This has a noticeable impact on the efficiency of solar charging.

Regarding single vs 3 phase charger - you’re probably borderline given system size and location. Taking into consideration how often the car will be home during the day and how much you drive may influence the decision.

Also, being in Queensland there was a limit of 20A on single-phase chargers, I believe this has been lifted but you may need to check if the Tesla Wall Charger meets the new rules for charging above 20A on single-phase.

There’s more to think about in this article: Single vs 3 phase for home EV charging.

I have two EVs, 15 kW of shaded solar in Sydney, one single phase and one 3-phase EV charger. In hindsight, I would put in 2 x single-phase chargers if I was doing it again.

5

Hey, are you planning to support Sungrow in EU in near future?
I mean https://web3.isolarcloud.eu/

6

Yes, it’s definitely possible and we hope to add support. It could be a few months though.

7

Once I recognized you don’t support EU region I started my own research and I was able to fetch inverter data :slight_smile:
Here is my code, hope it may be helpful - in the readme I described resources I used (GoSungrow package)

I’m happy to further assist in adding that feature to chargehq

8

Thanks @dunix15 good point, you can use the PushAPI to work around the EU constraint if you’re able to run a collection agent and do a little coding.

9

I didn’t know about this API, thx!