Zappi/GivEnergy Integration?

We purchased our first electric car almost a year ago now, and had a Zappi v2 installed for home charging. The Zappi was installed using an external Henley Block, so it doesn't hang off our internal consumer unit. We also had a Harvi installed with CT clamp on the meter tails, enablling the Zappi see household energy usage.

We then had our PV, hybrid inverter, and first battery installed late last year. The CT clamp for the inverter is in the consumer unit, so it can't "see" energy used by the Zappi. From that point, the Zappi could see we're exporting some of the time, but can't tell the difference between PV generation vs. the battery discharging. It's my understanding I could add another Harvi, with a CT clamp on the AC cable between inverter <-> consumer unit, but not between the battery <-> inverter, because that's a DC connection.

Ahead of getting our second battery installed today, I had asked the installer if there's a wireless CT clamp option for the GivEnergy inverter to monitor the usage the other side of the Henley Block (the other side of the wall). It seems there isn't, but they had a very good go at getting a cable through the wall, the same way the wires between Henley Block <-> consumer unit go - this failed due to hitting insulation in the cavity. I'm very much against having any holes drilled through since the consumer unit has circuits running all over the house behind this wall, and we've no idea where they are.

What I'm wondering is whether GivEnergy, and MyEnergi could get together with a software integration, allowing their respective products to share the relevant details.

There is a wireless option - Lora. https://kb.givenergy.cloud/article.php?id=48

anglefire I’m probably missing something, but isn’t that for scenarios where the consumer unit is remote to the inverter? (It looks like the remote end attaches to a consumer unit power rail.)

adamdoran the Lora is just a rs485 wireless bridge so shouldn’t make a difference which way it goes. It should be transparent to the inverter.
Unless I’m missing something!

adamdoran Your Harvi can take multiple CT clamps, you wont need a second harvi. Your zappi can also take an extra CT claim. Any zappi installer should be able to come out and sort this for you. I am due my zappi with hub and harvi to be installed Feb 15th and the installer is aware I have a home storage system with 2 solar systems feeding it.

I have a Zappi with AC battery and all three clamps are connected directly to the Zappi without a harvi and it works fine.

THALL The issue is the Harvi is the wrong side of the wall to have an additional CT clamp on the inverter, and that it wouldn't be able to monitor the battery because that's a DC cable.

anglefire thanks, I'll get our installer to take a second look and check with GivEnergy.

I fit a lot of zappi chargers for solar and storage integration it is second to none, if you draw a sketch out of what you have I will be happy to mark what should go where, you can add the harvi and ct clamps yourself quite easily. The menus are very easy to navigate and I am more than happy to talk you through the steps.

Ghyde thanks very much, I’ll make a quick diagram.

Ghyde Have you any experience of installing with more than one AC coupled battery? I’m considering a Zappi, along with an Eddi and reckon I might as well go for a Hub and Harvi too. I understand I’ll need a CT clamp for the PV and a separate one for the Grid into the Harvi, but how do I take account of the two batteries, each feeding its own AC 3.0 with only one input left on the Harvi?

JJB you only need 3 CT clamps if you have a Zappi, Eddi and a hub. You can only have 1 CT clamp as a 'mains AC master'.

1 on the tail from the meter output as the master and then 1 on each of the outputs from each inverter or if they combine into 1 cable just one on that one.

The Myenergi setup side will let you designate what is feeding each CT Clamp and there are options for PV, Battery of PV and Battery.

I don't know if you can have 2 PV and Battery feeds showing but the Myenergi app doesn't show you any data from a combined PV and battery setup aside from current flow info.

Depending on where your kit is sited you could potentially have the 2 AC feed CT clamps plugged into the Eddi and the Harvi just feeding the mains CT.

It's not massively clear in Myenergy's documentation as its mostly written as standalone setup not using all their kit that you can feed data from any device if you have the hub.

Finally it's worth noting that it needs a hub for this to work and that the LCD displays on the Zappi and Eddi won't show anything bar export flow.

I haven't changed my combined PV and batt setup to see if it shows the generation on the unit displays but I think they use live data.

yandards Thanks, I’m quite happy to get a Hub as part of the setup. Everything bar the immersion is sited together, so I could use CT inputs on the Zappi as well as the Harvi.

My goal is to have the 6kW PV charging the batteries as a priority, with any surplus then going to the Zappi or Eddi. The choice between Zappi or Eddi is, I believe, determined by the minimum charge delivery of the Zappi at 1.5kW (in which case surplus <1.5kW would go the Eddi) or whether there is an EV plugged-in at the time.

It could be complete nonsense and we don’t need either (well, we don’t need any of this), but we soon expect to be producing more than our house consumes or that we can store in our 2x5.2 kWh batteries. We could get another battery or the Zappi/Eddi setup, which is less capital investment.

The hypothetical issue I’m trying to solve for is not draining either battery into the Zappi or Eddi, which I understand can be dealt with using “marginal” power settings. I just want the myEnergi setup to see both batteries, as one if needed, so appreciate anyone who has experience of this type of setup.

JJB you'll never get the Zappi or Eddi to see the batteries as they are DC coupled sadly.

It can see the combined PV and battery output but it won't know if it's battery or PV generation so you can't use any of those functions within the myenergy side.

I've found setting the grid export margin to 100w prevents any battery drain but 50w had some issues with battery drain.

You can set if the Eddi or Zappi is priority simply with the myenergy app.

You might want to take a look here
https://myenergi.info/stop-your-zappi-draining-your-dc-battery-t5022.html

THALL Hi I would be interested in how your Zappi install went. I had a Zappi installed last March and now a two string solar plus GivEnergy inverter battery is being installed and awaiting switch on.
My priority is to use battery for home power while grid is at standard rate and yo recharge battery on off peak at night. EV car use is relatively low as I'm retired and is primarily used for touring mileage awayfrom home.

FYI
The generation 2 eddy's have built I n wifi and do not require a hub.

I am unsure if that changes anything for you. Harvington connects with WiFi to eddi (or whatever is the master device)

Ghyde I have had a Zappi 2 (and Harvi) installed but have yet to make the CT clamps connection to benefit from Eco and Eco+. I have a three-phase supply with a set of PV panels and a GE battery on each phase, with a single string inverter. As an experienced installer I am sure you have come across this issue before. Will this need CT clamps on each battery linked together as well as a CT clamp for the string inverter? I can't draw you a sketch as I am not technical enough on this matter.

Dougal I think, given my understanding of your plant, that in order to control the AC3 for each phase, each will need a grid CT to minimise import/export on that phase. To enable the PV input to that phase from your string inverter to be displayed in the Givenergy portal, the AC3 on that phase will require another EM115 (or directly wired CT). I'm not sure if that was the question you were asking.

For the Zappi, if it's single phase, you will need a CT connected either directly to the Zappi or to the Harvi so that it can make use of ECO and ECO+ mode by monitoring grid export for that phase. AFAIK you will need one for each phase if it's a 3 phase 22kW Zappi to monitor export for each phase. If you want to be able to monitor your string inverter in the MyEnergi app, you will need a string inverter CT connected to the Zappi or Harvi and one for each AC3 that is on the same phase as the Zappi (ie same phase for single phase or all three for the 22kW one). To display all solar/battery for a single phase in the MyEnergi app, it's Grid + AC3 + PV (3 CTs) and to display all the information for a three phase, it would be 9CTs but only one per phase is needed to operate in ECO+ mode with no display of AC3 and PV. I'm not sure the Zappi/Harvi can handle more than 6 CTs. Maybe the 3 phase one can?

Tim Thank you for using your experience and brain power to my questions and set-up. It sounds like I need a veritable CT clamp jungle to make this work. I need to check with my installer to find out what we have. To my knowledge we have a grid CT on each phase feeding into a box with three EM115s. I presume that these connect directly to the AC3s, but I don't know at the moment. I can only see one set of EM115s.

The Zappi is a three-phase 22kw model. It sounds like it will be an interesting challenge to be able to display all the information correctly in the MyEnergi app. If there is a constraint then the MyEnergi display may be the hostage to fortune. I need to get a better handle on the set-up when my installer returns and that will be when the GivEnergy team come to see us - shortly I hope, as some technical issues are getting in the way. Why do I feel like I am at the bleeding edge of domestic renewables?

Before I can ask for any more assistance we need to get our PV panel plus batteries/inverters set-up operating properly. I also need to have a better handle on the details of the set-up and will try to draw a diagram when I have that knowledge. We will need that if only to get the Zappi linkages optimised. I didn't expect to find myself trying to become vaguely technical when I invested in all this kit. I simply expected it all to work. Ho hum!

Dougal Why do I feel like I am at the bleeding edge of domestic renewables?

Because you’ve got a 3 phase domestic supply with a 3 phase PV inverter, 3 phase Zappi and three AC3s. I presume that's also why you're getting a visit from the manufacturer.

Dougal draw a diagram

Your installer is supposed to provide you with a schematic of everything they install and any other relevant components (such as the 3 phase string inverter).

L174559 Sorry for the late reply. I have only just returned from a short holiday.

Install was fine. I have the AC3 inverter so using another CT clamp can set the zappi to see the battey and prevent discharge etc.

So my setup works like this
Zappi in ECO++ mode all the time
Scheduled boost charge set for my Intelligent Octopus 6 hour window
Car set to 80%
GE battery timed charge set to my Intelligent 6 hour window, Battery % set depending on time of year. Right now it is set to 50%
If the car does get enough charge from solar it will boost charge from the grid during the scheduled charge time.
It will also drain the battery if the battery has a higher charge % than the minimum set on the timed charge. So tonight I might dump 20% of my home battery into the car. In the Summer I dump more in etc

Tim Hi Tim I have not visited the forum as I was awaiting a date for the GE visit. An engineer is coming on Monday, so hopefully we will get it sorted. I have now drawn a schematic with some grey areas that I need to ask my installer where the all the CT clamps connect. I asked them for a schematic and it fell some way short of being useful.

The issue is with one battery – I think just one. Spot or real-time data on the cloud portal (and Russell app) produces totally different results to the historical cumulative data in the Daily Report the following day. Some days I get a minus figure for solar generation. Other days I get weird figures like an impossible 'battery to home' figure of 106.65kw in the daily report. The daily variances between imported data across all three inverters between the GE Cloud portal and Octopus varies between 2kw and 30kw.

If you can think of any questions I might sensibly put to the engineer and installer do let me know, please?

Dougal When you refer to Octopus, I presume you are referring to your on-line smart meter data? If so, this data is correct as it's what you pay your bills on. Any other meter readings/data are just for information. Of course, if they are close to the Octopus meter data, then that gives you confidence, but if they're not, its possible that there's something not right, or desperately wrong.

You could do worse than carry out some tests on each phase to see if the load being drawn is showing correctly in the portal. If you can plug in an EV and charge at a lowish rate, say 6kW (ie 2kW/phase) for 15 minutes, you would be able to service that load from PV or better, from your AC3s. Hopefully, a continuous load of 2kW for 15 minutes would be enough time for you to look at the data "real time" on the app. I guess the key thing here is that the data should look the same for all three AC3s. If one has a noisy or dodgy CT or a CT facing the wrong way, you should be able to "see" this from the portal data during the test. If the portal data doesn't all look similar, then it could be a CT problem: either a noisy signal, CT clip come undone, CT facing the wrong way, or positioned such that the Zappi supply is taken off before the CT.

I don't use the Givenergy reports as I know there are problems at their end with correctly consolidating the data. I always use the portal data downloaded form the portal inverter card and then click on the Inverter Data button which is a 3x3 matrix at the top right of the card. That data is the five minute cloud log of inverter data and is the best data available until Givenergy can get their reports working consistently.

Tim With regard to the reports, I'm not sure about very long term, but they seem to use the interval data rather than the total data to produce the reports - I had a three day local and internet outage the other week and so lost the data for that period. Running the report for the month resulted in a lower PV import than actual. I based this on the total energy at the current time in the month less the total at the biggening. About 27kWh low - which I could see in HA as a spike in the production on the day of internet restoration.

THALL Thanks for the info since install today a bit concerned that Givenergy support is a bit DIY!

L174559 Our exchanges are a bit like pigeon post. They take days to get though each way. It is my fault as I have been pre-occupied. FYI, the engineer was very helpful and solved most things in 90 minutes or so. However, he left before checking everything was exactly as it should be. – more anon. We had compound issues, part installer fault, part GE's fault. Apparently the one inverter/battery had a fault that could only be physically rectified on site and was a manufacturer issue. The other was because the installer had connected mis-connected two inverters and batteries. I asked the installer to hang around for an hour after the engineer left to make sure everything was working ticketty-boo. It didn't take long to discover that the other two inverters were exporting solar generation straight to the grid. He made a call to Technical Support who did a hard re-set on both the other inverters/batteries,and then did one on the third one for good measure. Since then we have had a functional system.