EV Charging Station on AC IN - charging only from grid not from solar or batteries

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kyros32 asked Jun 5, '24

EV Charging Station on AC IN - charging only from grid not from solar or batteries

Dear community,

I have EV Charging Station on AC IN. Consumtion is metered via inverters (no ET or CT).

All loads except the EV Charger are on AC OUT.

Explanation of problematic behaviour:

- when charging, only grid power is used - the system does not start to discharge batteries or ramp up solar

- the consumption of the EV is not summed up with grid consumption.

My initial idea was that Cerbo / EV Charger comms. are broken, but it is not the case. Also I did upgrade all FWs to latest versions.

Thank you very much for support.

ev charging station

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dognose commented · Jun 05 at 07:11 PM

Any chance you are using some mqtt-2-evcharger implementation there?

Some of them are not well programmed, and only report the AC-total to dbus. Then it will show the total values, but nothing on grid, because L1,L2 and L3 powers are left at 0.

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kyros32 dognose commented · Jun 05 at 07:18 PM

Nope, :-( MQTT is disabled, and no instance such as Node-red nor any other automation platform is implemented on this site.

Only a Fronius is AC coupled, but we use native Victron integration.

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kyros32 dognose commented · Jun 05 at 07:23 PM

That being said, no custom plugins or software that would interfere with dbus are implemented.

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dognose kyros32 commented · Jun 05 at 08:18 PM

hmm, Maybe enable Mqtt for a while, use MqttExplorer to connect to the gx-device and check if any values are missing?

- When charging, the topic `N/{portalId}/evcharger/x/AC` should have values in the subkeys /L1 /L2 /L3, like this:

(Voltage, current and PowerFactor are optional, but Power should be there)

Also during charging, you should notice a significant change on the values of `N/{portalId}/system/0/AC/ConsumptionOnInput`:

Best would be to take a screenshot of the whole `evcharger` and `ConsumptionOnInput` tree and post it.

These values should kinda match together.

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dognose kyros32 commented · Jun 05 at 08:23 PM

Oh, what kind of grid-meter are you using?

If you are using inverter-measuring, i'm not sure if the system will be able to show loads on the AC-IN side correctly.

At least the ev-charger it could display (mathematically), but not sure if that's what is supposed to happen.

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kyros32 dognose commented · Jun 06 at 05:39 PM

Hi @dognose

ok, I checked it with following result - over mqtt I see EV charger power when charging the vehicle, but these values are not reflected in "ConsumptionOnInput" topic.

We are not using ET340 in this scenario - I think it is not needed, I quote EV Charger manual:

Charger: Charger related settings.

EV charger position: Select where the EVCS is positioned in the system. Examples:

If the charging station is on the output of an inverter as one of the main’s AC outsources, select Inverter AC out.

If connected to the grid and the EVCS is positioned at the AC input of the grid before the inverter, select Inverter AC in.

Our distributor claimed it is not needed to measure it. Metering device is not depicted in charger/system schematics either.

Could someone from Victron confirm that EV Charging Station can work on AC IN without additional meter devices such as ET340?

@mvader (Victron Energy) @Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff)

Thank you!

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ kyros32 commented · Jun 06 at 07:58 PM

Hi, If you give me the VRM portal ID, I can take a look

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kyros32 Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented · Jun 07 at 05:52 AM

Thank you Mr. Popescu. Here it goes c0619ab1eb3b

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ kyros32 commented · Jun 07 at 06:05 AM

Hi, now It's clear. Yes, you need a meter for this configuration. How the system could know that there are no other consumers on AC IN?

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kyros32 Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented · Jun 07 at 08:26 AM

@Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) thank you for clarification. It would be nice to add this to EV Charger manual, if this is required. One would think that the system works with the assumption that in inverter metering mode there are no other AC loads on AC IN other then the charger which is actively communicated, because the position is selected during the commissioning. Also, metering devices are not mentioned in the manual.

Logically, if inverter metering is selected, ConsumptionOnInput would equal the load of AC IN EV Charger.

If external meter is selected, then of course this mathematical consumption would be ignored and it would rely solely on metered values.

Maybe this could be considered as a feature for the future?

Best regards

kyros

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ kyros32 commented · Jun 07 at 09:13 AM

We can't add all the possible scenarios in the manual.

I don't think this is going to be a feature, for the reason I told you above.

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stradivarius84 Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented · Jun 14 at 04:10 PM

@Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) Do you plan to update the ev charger firmware in order to avoid using house batteries?

I know that we can make some stuff with node red but I don't want to block batteries for the whole house during car charging...

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ stradivarius84 commented · Jun 15 at 01:34 AM

Yes, but when the logic will be moved inside the GX.

Now, the EVCS is considered the same as any other consumer for the ESS algorithm.

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