I had to buy a new charger to continue with octopus Igo
I've gone with hypervolt as givenergy isn't compatible yet, but in the gate way there are terminals for an ev charger that my installer pointed out.
Is it possible to have a 3rd party charger connected to the gateway so that you can avoid battery drain or is that not a thing?
I think it will power it, but it won’t do anything smart.
Dave_Sw1 Yes, that's possible, that's how my new setup is configured. Zappi charger is connected to the Gateway using dedicated EV slot, to my understanding. It will not work during blackout, and will not drain the battery unless the entire house is exporting.
bRhFDKtjRMK9 Can you confirm that the gateway EV connection can charge the car without draining the battery? I'm on IOG and it's a pain trying to get the charging done without discharging the battery, especially when Octopus change their plan after connection.
Ultima357 I will try to test for you tomorrow, after I am back home with empty battery. Normally I charge it between 00:00 and 06:00 when I have cheapest tariff and AIO is charging from flat anyway.
bRhFDKtjRMK9 Thanks. I've had the situation when I've plugged the car in and whilst normally it gets scheduled for the cheap overnight slot, on occasions, it has started to charge before then, draining the AIO battery when I want it reserved to run the house whilst the normal day rate is on. Whilst in the winter, I charge the AIO every night, during the summer months I have been letting my solar keep it topped up and then every time I want to charge the car, I have to manually stop the AIO from feeding the charger as there's no point draining one to top up the other as you're just burning juice due to battery in/out losses.
@Ultima357 Alright, I checked behaviour of the charger on different modes:
On instant "Fast" charging mode, the charger will demand power from the house, and the battery will try to meet this demand. It's being discharged to satisfy charger demand. That's unfortunate, if you were hoping for a different result. On "Eco" mode, it will charge with minimum speed (of 1.3 kW) if minimum export surplus is not reached. On "Eco+" mode, it will only charge if export surplus reaches the desired value set by the user.
Also, the charger will draw from the grid not the battery, if the battery is in charging schedule (charging or idling, but still in charging schedule).
And lastly, when grid is down, EV charger will stop working completely.
That's the features I was able to determine in my system.
I have AIO, Gateway, and Zappi charger in Eco+ Mode set to 100%. Eco+ Mode set to 100% means it will charge only using export surplus (which never happens in my case, because I consume entire generation and never export). To that mode, I added an override in form of 00:00 to 06:00 scheduled charge, which overrides Eco+ Mode and charges in full speed in my scheduled slot. It always does this without fail, never made a mistake like you mentioned. Maybe check if you can fiddle with your particular charger, change settings or update firmware. I am inclined to think the problem you are experiencing is related to the charger itself, not to AIO battery.
bRhFDKtjRMK9 Thank you for the comprehensive test and explanation. So it seems the that the Gateway allows the AIO to contribute / completely power the zappi charging which wasn't what I was hoping for. On the charging out of the cheap overnight slot, Octopus will do this if there is a grid surplus as they control the zappi. If they do this, they only charge you at the cheap rate for the amount taken. It's only happened a few times in the summer. But if you don't spot this via the Octopus app, then the AIO battery gets drained and you can run out of juice for the house before the overnight cheap rate cuts in which is not a desired situation.
So thanks again for the time and trouble taken. Looks like I'll have to see if I can shoe horn in a Henley block and set up a separate CU for the zappi.
You are welcome. I understand your situation. I decided to use "dumb" energy broker ( Tomato Energy) which does not control my Zappi, but I do this myself via schedule. And electricity rates are cheaper than Octopus anyway (see my analysis here: https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/5142-what-tariff-for-aio-ev-solar/21)
It works well for my use case, as overnight car charging is totally fine. Maybe consider moving to "dumb" tariff where you have simplified, cheap night tariff to work with.