clamps for home charger

[RossN]

I am going to have a home charger fitted to the front of my house for my new MG 5 due to be delivered in Jan/Feb. I have gone for the Zappi but am a tad confused about the clamps. I already have a clamp on my power supply as I have solar panels and the clamp is there to work with a power converter so instead of sending excess solar power back to the grid it sends it to charge my hot water. The Zappi also uses a clamp (perhaps 2 ! ) so that if you set it up on Eco+ mode it only will charge your car with excess solar electricity. How will the 2/3 clamps work together and is it a simple case of which clamp is nearest to the house ? Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[Marcad]

I'm watching this as I also have a solar boost. I am thinking the Zappi Hub will control both, you need the Hub for updates and "should" be included in the cost.

 

[RossN]

My electrician has sent a message to Zappi asking for confirmation but no reply yet. I have an app that I can monitor my solar panels output and it automatically sends excess energy to my immerser (I have no gas) but not sure how the app you get with Zappi will clash with that...guess I will see in time.
The hub is included.

 

[greentangerine]

If your power / immersion diverter is an Eddi then if you have a hub all should be configurable. If not, you might get away with tweaking settings i.e my battery system charger takes precedence over my Eddi because the latter is programmed to delay diversion and by that time the battery system is consuming the excess.

I'm likely to have a similar issue when the weather gets better as my BEV charger (an OpenEVSE - installed in October) also has an Eco mode and I'll have to work out the priority there (I want that to be the last I think).

 

[Petriix]

The myenergi forum is a good resource and their development team are active within the community so they should be able to help you configure the Zappi correctly to account for the existing diverter. My Zappi came with two CT clamps (I had to pay £15 extra for the second one) so that it can monitor both the solar output and the energy flowing to/from the grid. With this information it can work out when to divert the excess to the EV.

In its default configuration I believe it would just see the existing diverter as additional house load but you can use a Harvi to add another CT clamp to monitor the diverter as well, then the Zappi can effectively override it by drawing from the grid briefly to trick the diverter into shutting off.

 

[Richie]

I am going to have a home charger fitted to the front of my house for my new MG 5 due to be delivered in Jan/Feb. I have gone for the Zappi but am a tad confused about the clamps. I already have a clamp on my power supply as I have solar panels and the clamp is there to work with a power converter so instead of sending excess solar power back to the grid it sends it to charge my hot water. The Zappi also uses a clamp (perhaps 2 ! ) so that if you set it up on Eco+ mode it only will charge your car with excess solar electricity. How will the 2/3 clamps work together and is it a simple case of which clamp is nearest to the house ? Thanks in advance for any replies.

Hi Ross

Interesting you say "instead of sending excess solar power back to the grid it sends it to charge my hot water" do you still get any grid return on the FIT payment?

They were/are giving me an extra payment for estimated 50% return to grid of the total produced that's at the moment. I had a smart meter fitted two months ago so that % may change as I understand the s/meter tells then the correct usage? Only had the s/meter fitted because of the EV charger fitment (did not want one but was told we had to have it)

 

[Petriix]

Hi Ross

Interesting you say "instead of sending excess solar power back to the grid it sends it to charge my hot water" do you still get any grid return on the FIT payment?

They were/are giving me an extra payment for estimated 50% return to grid of the total produced that's at the moment. I had a smart meter fitted two months ago so that % may change as I understand the s/meter tells then the correct usage? Only had the s/meter fitted because of the EV charger fitment (did not want one but was told we had to have it)

You aren't obliged to give up your deemed export payments. Your FIT provider can be different from your regular supplier and they would have no way of knowing your export readings.

 

[Richie]

You aren't obliged to give up your deemed export payments. Your FIT provider can be different from your regular supplier and they would have no way of knowing your export readings.

Okay, as it is with me, good call
But don't they ask you if there any changes to the system when you provide a reading?

 

[Marcad]

Our FIT is Scottish Power our energy supplier is somebody else, SP just ask for solar reading and the other mob just ask for meter readings, neither knows the other readings and don't. ask, so I don't. tell.

Marc.

 

[RossN]

It is all above board to take as much energy for your house as you want. Also when I have my Zappi car charger it can be set up to take only my solar energy to charge my car. Your energy company doesnt know what you use your solar energy for and there is no meter to tell them what percentage of the solar you use. They just estimate that you use 50% and they pay you for that. The only thing that will change that is for them to fit a smart meter (and Scottish Power say they cant do that as I have a 2 tariff setup for cheap electricity overnight.

 

[Petriix]

Lots of people have smart meters and still receive deemed export payments. Don't overthink it.

 

[Richie]

Lots of people have smart meters and still receive deemed export payments. Don't overthink it.

I have two FIT suppliers and both ask "has there been any changes or confirm no changes" or some such question with a tick box. This on the page where you enter the I.D, readings etc?

But enough said, I will not be telling them anything.

 

[RossN]

I am also thinking of replacing my glitchy power converter (puts excess power from my solar panels into heating my hot water tank) and wondered if anyone has a Zappi Eddi which does the same thing

 

[Dave53]

I'm watching this as I also have a solar boost. I am thinking the Zappi Hub will control both, you need the Hub for updates and "should" be included in the cost.

The Zappi will need to work with the Eddie for solar, it is able to do everything including your hot water all set from the app., if you go on youtube and search for my energi Eddi, it's about £400 but is a very clever bit of kit

 

[Marcad]

So that's the Zappi, the Hub and then the Eddie. That pushes install up to about a Grand! not so cheap now.

 

[RossN]

Yep...looks like I will require all 3 to make it work the way I want. I will get £350 and then another £300 off the whole installation though. The original installation of just the Zappi and the Hub was going to cost me £700 (with the £650 off already) so fitted the whole lot might cost £1200/£1400.

 

[Marcad]

Yes, and you guys North of the wall get an extra incentive I think, wonder if I can use SWMBOs birthright to claim it down here?

 

[Tango130]

I am going to have a home charger fitted to the front of my house for my new MG 5 due to be delivered in Jan/Feb. I have gone for the Zappi but am a tad confused about the clamps.

There are a couple of diagrams in the Zappi manual that should help with the CT installation locations, page 5, 32-35

https://myenergi.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/zappi2-manual-v1_3-A4.pdf

 

[Chrispydoc]

My electrician has sent a message to Zappi asking for confirmation but no reply yet. I have an app that I can monitor my solar panels output and it automatically sends excess energy to my immerser (I have no gas) but not sure how the app you get with Zappi will clash with that...guess I will see in time.
The hub is included.

Regarding Solar panels.....if you have a very old electricity meter.....little dials going around in a bakerlite case and fit solar panels......it can make the little dials go backwards when the sun is shinning....you get paid twice! ( I didn't know this when we had our panels fitted 10 years ago and had a new digital meter fitted.!!! ...but my mate is still benefiting!)

 

[Richie]

Regarding Solar panels.....if you have a very old electricity meter.....little dials going around in a bakerlite case and fit solar panels......it can make the little dials go backwards when the sun is shinning....you get paid twice! ( I didn't know this when we had our panels fitted 10 years ago and had a new digital meter fitted.!!! ...but my mate is still benefiting!)

Shushhhhh don't tell everyone!
That was one of the bad things for having to get that sodding smart meter when we changed the fuse, tails all to fit a charger. Now working out how much this whole thing will cost us per year compared to the last 10 years.