Midlifecrisis
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Ian
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2021
- Threads
- 38
- Messages
- 1,238
- Reaction score
- 869
- Location
- Worcestershire
- Vehicles
- Taycan Turbo, Taycan 4S (sold). Macan SD (sold)
- Thread starter
- #1
Posting on the UK forum as I don’t think many other countries use Andersen. But the moderator might move it to charging!
I have had an Andersen EVSE since before I got my Taycan 18 months ago and have recently got some solar panels with a battery system. I knew the Andersen did solar and decided to try it out. I have the adaptive fuse (clamp on incoming cable from the meter to the fuse box that will reduce the power output if the house gets near to its 100A limit) and the solar setup uses the same clamp/cable/attachment to the EVSE.
The first problem was that the clamp was in the wrong place relative to where my solar was wired in so I had to move the clamp. This involved re-routing the wire (through a wall) and joining 2 Cat6 cables (only 2 of the wires, soldered together). The clamp now sits in my meter box by the meter on the live wire. I had to contact Andersen and get them to enable solar on my account which they did. I then got a new screen which allows me to set the percentage grid use relative to solar. It will do 100/75/50/25/0% solar. That means 0-75% Grid with any surplus solar going to the car instead of back to the grid. It needs at least 1.4kW surplus to charge (similar to Zappi which needs 1.3).
I first connected it one night with the intention of it coming on in the morning. Got a red charge error from the car but when the sun came up enough the car started to charge with the excess power from the solar going into the car. It starts on 7kW, measures the import from the grid then reduces the power by that amount. It then tracks any grid import/export and adjusts the power accordingly. Although there is a bit of to and fro with the grid, when I looked later it had hardly used anything. So it seemed to track pretty well and use only the excess solar as I had intended.
I did confuse it by putting on the kettle and then the grill. The excess suddenly fluctuated so it turned off and disabled itself. One I had finished messing in the kitchen I re-enabled it and it worked fine again.
The other thing that can confuse it is the battery system. This gets first priority on excess power and if it discharges, the Andersen “sees” it as solar. This is the same with my friend’s Zappi. So I can mitigate this by tweaking the charge and discharge settings in the solar app to limit both battery charge and discharge power if needed.
In summary it seems to work well tracking the excess solar power from my panels. If you don’t have the adaptive fuse setup it is easy to put in. All you need is a bit of basic DIY skills, the correct clamp and some cat6 cable. Just cut the power to the EVSE when you wire it in! You might need to alter your solar battery settings to get it to work well. You cant track the power in real time because both the Andersen and Porsche apps have too much lag, but it does seem to track well.
I hope this is helpful to anyone else who wants to use excess solar power and wonders how it works with the Andersen EVSE.
I have had an Andersen EVSE since before I got my Taycan 18 months ago and have recently got some solar panels with a battery system. I knew the Andersen did solar and decided to try it out. I have the adaptive fuse (clamp on incoming cable from the meter to the fuse box that will reduce the power output if the house gets near to its 100A limit) and the solar setup uses the same clamp/cable/attachment to the EVSE.
The first problem was that the clamp was in the wrong place relative to where my solar was wired in so I had to move the clamp. This involved re-routing the wire (through a wall) and joining 2 Cat6 cables (only 2 of the wires, soldered together). The clamp now sits in my meter box by the meter on the live wire. I had to contact Andersen and get them to enable solar on my account which they did. I then got a new screen which allows me to set the percentage grid use relative to solar. It will do 100/75/50/25/0% solar. That means 0-75% Grid with any surplus solar going to the car instead of back to the grid. It needs at least 1.4kW surplus to charge (similar to Zappi which needs 1.3).
I first connected it one night with the intention of it coming on in the morning. Got a red charge error from the car but when the sun came up enough the car started to charge with the excess power from the solar going into the car. It starts on 7kW, measures the import from the grid then reduces the power by that amount. It then tracks any grid import/export and adjusts the power accordingly. Although there is a bit of to and fro with the grid, when I looked later it had hardly used anything. So it seemed to track pretty well and use only the excess solar as I had intended.
I did confuse it by putting on the kettle and then the grill. The excess suddenly fluctuated so it turned off and disabled itself. One I had finished messing in the kitchen I re-enabled it and it worked fine again.
The other thing that can confuse it is the battery system. This gets first priority on excess power and if it discharges, the Andersen “sees” it as solar. This is the same with my friend’s Zappi. So I can mitigate this by tweaking the charge and discharge settings in the solar app to limit both battery charge and discharge power if needed.
In summary it seems to work well tracking the excess solar power from my panels. If you don’t have the adaptive fuse setup it is easy to put in. All you need is a bit of basic DIY skills, the correct clamp and some cat6 cable. Just cut the power to the EVSE when you wire it in! You might need to alter your solar battery settings to get it to work well. You cant track the power in real time because both the Andersen and Porsche apps have too much lag, but it does seem to track well.
I hope this is helpful to anyone else who wants to use excess solar power and wonders how it works with the Andersen EVSE.
Sponsored
