SOLAR system and ZAPPI charger

[misiekz]

Hi all

SO we gout a 15 panel system with a H1-5,0E inverter and 2 HV2600 batteries and it all works well.
recently we got an electric car and a ZAPPi charger that will allow us to use solar generated energy during the day to charge the car but what happens is the charger is pulling the power from the panels and from the battery and I can not stop it discharging the home batteries.
If I charge at night using cheap overnight tarrif I can change a setting in ZAPPi to use only grid power but can't stop batteries from draining during the day.
Anyone knows if there is any setting to stop that?
Thanks

[calum]

The inverter sees the Zappi as a "load" and so will try to supply it, and as you've noticed it will drain the battery to do so. You need to set a "Force Charge" period on your inverter if you don't want this to happen.

Lots of chat on the Zappi forums about this, but because the batteries are 'DC coupled' there isn't any way to prevent this - other than paying attention to the solar yield and stopping the charge manually if it's hitting the battery too hard.

[CliveRichardson]

I have a similar system. Set the charging mode on the Zappi to Eco+ and with the leaf percentage up near 80 or 90%. The Zappi will then not cut in unless solar being exported is sufficient to be changed to car battery charging, which has to be above 1.4kwh when the slider is set to 100%, a little less at 80 or 90%. (1.4kwh is set by the car manufacturers as the minimum power to start a charge.)
I have found this to work well and prevents the batteries from discharging.

[calum]

Even doing this it will not stop unless you do it manually - the exception being is there's another high load device that causes the house to start importing power from the grid, in which case Eco+ mode will stop the EV charging.

[CliveRichardson]

What do you have the boost setting at during charging? I always use Scheduled.

[calum]

Yeah, Scheduled boosting during the Octopus Go off-peak window.