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Using Solar to charge your MG5

staarek

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hi everyone,

Is anyone using their photovoltaics to charge your MG? What kind of figures do you get daily/monthly?
I managed to "harvest" over 185kwh this month so far, and will possibly get close to 200kwh - that's over 3 full "tanks". Maximum daily car charge was around 18kwh, but it could be potentially pushed to 20kwh. We have another electric vehicle (small 22kwh kangoo van) so when 1 car is being used the other one is charging. We did 140kwh in April.
 

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My modest set of panels did 311kWh in April but none of it went in the car. I can't generate enough at any one time to satisfy the car's demand so I just do that using the cheap overnight rate - which isn't free but compared to dino fuel it's very cheap!! All my spare free electricity goes into my hot wsater tank.
 
My modest set of panels did 311kWh in April but none of it went in the car. I can't generate enough at any one time to satisfy the car's demand so I just do that using the cheap overnight rate - which isn't free but compared to dino fuel it's very cheap!! All my spare free electricity goes into my hot wsater tank.

311kwh is not a bad result! I also use solar to heat up water, i specifically bought a low wattage (1kw) water tank not to put too much strain on the batteries in less sunny conditions. In terms of charging the car, I invested in variable power charger 6-13 amps, so if the weather is not that great I can still charge the car but with modest 6 amps...
 
Yes I use a zappi in eco+ mode. From my 7.02 kwp pv system April was 882kwh, May so far 981kwh. 351kwh went into the mg5. You peeks at 7kw are boosting overnight on octopus agile. Every thing else is from the solar pv.
 

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I too have a Zappi but the car is never, well hardly ever, at home when the house battery is full and the Eddi has done it's thing.
 
Hi I have got the MG5 and the MG4 and the Zappi with solar PV 4kw on most days when the sun is up but I don’t really keep a record of what’s gone where just plug it in to one or the other and let it do its thing I have said before solar PV which I have had for around 10 years before I ever had my first EV vehicle was the best investment I have ever made now with 2 EVs it even better.
Les
 
Yes I use a zappi in eco+ mode. From my 7.02 kwp pv system April was 882kwh, May so far 981kwh. 351kwh went into the mg5. You peeks at 7kw are boosting overnight on octopus agile. Every thing else is from the solar pv.
These are some impressive figures! Are you on or off grid? We've got 4.5kw and it seems we should get around 550kwh this month.

Hi I have got the MG5 and the MG4 and the Zappi with solar PV 4kw on most days when the sun is up but I don’t really keep a record of what’s gone where just plug it in to one or the other and let it do its thing I have said before solar PV which I have had for around 10 years before I ever had my first EV vehicle was the best investment I have ever made now with 2 EVs it even better.
Les
Same here, we've been using solar since 2010, and it's one of the bets investments ever.
 
I've clocked up around 135kwh of charge from my 3.2kw panels since 21st March. Since I don't do many miles that's the only charging I've done apart from a couple of free hours at a car park podpoint (just under 14kwh from that).

I only charge the car once the solar battery is full and we're feeding back to the grid, so all the rest gets used for the house. At the moment I can't use it all though - both solar and car battery get full and I end up exporting. It's dull today though, so probably will need some grid electrons by tonight.
 
I have a 5kw system, used zappi to charge from 100% solar yesterday and got 20kw, would have got more but the car was fully charged by then. Car is at home most daytimes so 99% of the time it is only charged via solar. Two reasonably sunny days will charge it from flat to 100% easily, could probably do in one day if no other high load appliances are in use and its a sunny day. With no high load appliances running (dishwasher, oven etc) we can be generating an extra 4.5kw/hr with direct sunshine.
 
Yes, we have a 3.65kW array and SyncEV charger. I chose the latter for the ability to vary charge between 6A - 32A manually. I work from home and our car is not used every day so nearly 6000 miles have cost just under £70. I keep the car between 40 -80% charge often by charging at 6A early in the morning and late afternoon. In May production was 579kWh of which 335 was exported at £0.15/kWh more than covering 120kWh drawn from grid. I had planned to get a battery for the house but with Outgoing Octopus it wouldn't make financial sense.
 
Our roof faces south-south-east so output tails off from mid afternoon. A modest battery ~5Kwh to cover the peak 4pm to 8pm (Agile Octopus) would average the import cost down to below what we get back from export most of the time.

What I like about the zappi is the automated management of the charge current. Just plug the car in and leave it. Its used often enough not to fret too much about sitting at a high state of charge for a long time. If I know I am not going to use it and want to limit the charge. I have set up an automation in Home Assistant that I can use to stop the zappi once a desired amount of charge is delivered. Which help in eco+ where the Kwh delivered is not constant
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We have a 4kw array along with 7.8kw of battery storage which generated over 760kwh in May.House is about 1000ft above sea level, with a south facing roof and no shading at any time of day so the panels are really kicking out about as much they possibly could.

Our home EV charger is an old style pod point without any smart functionality so we generally leave the car on the granny charger plugged into a socket controlled by a Shelly device and linked to Home Assistant.

When the house battery is full (usually by 10am this time of year) the car is automatically trickle charged until such time as the house battery reaches 90% or we get to 30 minutes before sunset. We've done this for a while and our car is pretty much free to power for about 7 months of the year.
 

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hi everyone,

Is anyone using their photovoltaics to charge your MG? What kind of figures do you get daily/monthly?
I managed to "harvest" over 185kwh this month so far, and will possibly get close to 200kwh - that's over 3 full "tanks". Maximum daily car charge was around 18kwh, but it could be potentially pushed to 20kwh. We have another electric vehicle (small 22kwh kangoo van) so when 1 car is being used the other one is charging. We did 140kwh in April.
I've been running my ZS on sunshine since April. We have a 4kwh east west power system linked to a small (2.4kwh) home battery, but we're only doing about 5000 miles a year so the car is usually on the driveway in the daytime using the 3kw granny charger. I wait in the morning till the house battery is at 100%, then plug the car in & check on my phone every half hour or so until the house battery drops below 20%. On a sunny day all the house battery has to do is compensate for when clouds come over. Other days I may have to switch off the car charge or risk actually paying for electricity!
In May we produced 492.8 kwh and used 252 kwh. On just 1 June the solar panels produced 21.4kwh, we used 17.4 kwh of which about 15kwh went into the car. Good while the sunshine lasts, but will try to get cheap rate overnight power for the winter months.
 
I have set up an automation in Home Assistant that I can use to stop the zappi once a desired amount of charge is delivered. Which help in eco+ where the Kwh delivered is not constant
View attachment 18012
What is that screen shot from? I don't have anything like that on my Zappi app - I find the Zappi controls pretty inadequate and have to set an alarm on my phone to remind me to manually turn the zappi off before the house battery (8kwh) gets too low or it starts taking power from the grid (if in Eco mode,not Eco+)
 
For most of the year I find the 8kwH house battery is more than enough for the house demand (no electric heating/water) so in winter I charge the battery to 80%on Octopus Go cheap rate each night and then dump any leftover in the evening into the car. In winter if car gets too low for next days use I charge it on Go cheap, which will add 50% in the 4 hrs (MG5 SR) to the car.
In summer mostly all driving is on solar, either charged on Eco+ while the sun shines, or extracted from the battery (which isn't using Go cheap rate in summer,just the solar - 2.6kW notional but E-W facing)
 
What is that screen shot from? I don't have anything like that on my Zappi app - I find the Zappi controls pretty inadequate and have to set an alarm on my phone to remind me to manually turn the zappi off before the house battery (8kwh) gets too low or it starts taking power from the grid (if in Eco mode,not Eco+)
No me also never seen that screen on my Zappi or its App
Les
 
NB when we got the car you could find public rapid chargers at 35p/kWh or less - which was much cheaper per mile than petrol. Now they all seem to be over 65p/kWh and petrol is pretty much the same price as it was so if you have to use public chargers there is little or no economic benefit.
 
My MG5 has been running on sunshine for the last few months
I have two arrays (2.1kw and 3.9kw) plus a Tesla powerwall
Last month they generated a total of 921 Kw
We consumed 738Kw Imported 7Kw and Exported 176 Kw

Consumption includes house use car charging and battery charging
The battery basically meant we used almost zero power from the grid (most of useage of grid power was electric shower that exceeded the 5 Kw max output from the Tesla wall. (problem resolved now immersion heater and i boost is working again!

Charging of the car accounted for approx 227 Kw

The addition of the battery to the system has helped smooth the availability of power.
If its sunny and the panels are producing 3Kw or more I can charge at a rate of 7.2 Kw

Really pleased with the system and battery just need a second EV car to use up the export power?

My biggest energy cost is the standing charge!!!

The MG5 runs so much better on sunshine !!!

Note figures all taken from myenergi ap via the zappi
 
My MG5 has been running on sunshine for the last few months
I have two arrays (2.1kw and 3.9kw) plus a Tesla powerwall
Last month they generated a total of 921 Kw
We consumed 738Kw Imported 7Kw and Exported 176 Kw

Consumption includes house use car charging and battery charging
The battery basically meant we used almost zero power from the grid (most of useage of grid power was electric shower that exceeded the 5 Kw max output from the Tesla wall. (problem resolved now immersion heater and i boost is working again!

Charging of the car accounted for approx 227 Kw

The addition of the battery to the system has helped smooth the availability of power.
If its sunny and the panels are producing 3Kw or more I can charge at a rate of 7.2 Kw

Really pleased with the system and battery just need a second EV car to use up the export power?

My biggest energy cost is the standing charge!!!

The MG5 runs so much better on sunshine !!!

Note figures all taken from myenergi ap via the zappi
Love it sounds like you a great PV system and have had some excellent weather down in mid/south wales I was there myself week before last and it was very nice indeed I bet the arrays are east and south facing.wish I could get another array on the east side to go with my south facing array but not allowed at my home sad to say.
Les
 
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