Home Enegry Manager and PLC connection to PMCC - Help?

[Alaistair]

I 'm setting up my home charging and the car came complete with Home Enegry Manager and PMCC.
Can't find any decent tutorials on this....I think I have most things on the Home Energy Manager setup.....
But confused over PLC comms.

Do I need to connect the Home Energy Manager to the PMCC via PLC? What does that add? And how do I do it....been trying everything to establiosh a connection between them.

I assume the Home Energy Manager connects to PLC via its Voltage Measurement jack?

Help me Obe Wan, you're my only hope....

Sponsored

 

[AndiL]

Hi,

the Home Energy Manager and the PMCC need to "linked" together so they can communicate with each other so the Energy Manager can control the charging process. Using the WIFI connection of the PMCC will result in a lot of problems (been there, had that). The connection via PLC basically setups up a network connection using the powerline instead of a separate ethernet cable.

According to the documentation (and how PLC) works, the Energy Manager has a PLC on the front (looks like a electrical socket) for starting the linking. Then on the PMCC display navigate to the network menu, select the PLC item and start the pairing process. Make sure not to wait too long between setting this up on both, as it might time out.

Hope this helps,
Andreas

 

[Alaistair]

Cheers, will give this a try later. When I press the PLC button on the front of the Energy Manager - I'm not seeing any lights flashing or anything....should I? Also, do I need PLC DHCP turned on? The energy Manager is connected to my LAN via wired ethernet - so I can access the web admin page.

 

[W1NGE]

I 'm setting up my home charging and the car came complete with Home Enegry Manager and PMCC.
Can't find any decent tutorials on this....I think I have most things on the Home Energy Manager setup.....
But confused over PLC comms.

Do I need to connect the Home Energy Manager to the PMCC via PLC? What does that add? And how do I do it....been trying everything to establiosh a connection between them.

I assume the Home Energy Manager connects to PLC via its Voltage Measurement jack?

Help me Obe Wan, you're my only hope....

PLC (power-line communication) is a wired (rather than WiFi) connection to your PMCC. This is achieved using your existing electrical circuit. PMCC needs to be in PLC mode and then be paired to your HEM. You may need a PLC adapter ( eg TP-Link, BT, etc) to connect to your router but the documentation should explain all of this.

PLC has many use cases - WiFi range extension being the main one and has been around for quite some years.

The Porsche HEM doesn't support WiFi (I think) and so you can only connect to it via PLC (uses the power cables in your home circuit providing both devices are on the same ring main).

BTW, there isn't much point in installing the HEM unless you have solar at home. You may need an electrician to install the HEM. Not many people take the HEM option but there are one or two folks on the forum who have the knowledge on this type of setup.

 

[Scandinavian]

The PMCC and the HEM can communicate two different ways. One is by WiFi and the other is by PLC. As other have said the connection via WiFi can be tricky. PLC is not the simplest to set up but seems more stable. I have a three phase system in my house so I have no problem with finding the correct line etc. And the set up does not require any separate PLC modem or router, the PMCC and HEM talk directly to each other. Our power supply has however had some problems lately with bad weather and thunderstorms so that has Given some trouble with restarts etc.

The HEM brings most benefit with solar energy, but it can also be set up to control power to the PMCC, so that you will not overload the installation if there is limited supply from the grid. It will then automatically reduce the max power from a max 22 kW to a lower power level.

If you have the PMCC and HEM included in your delivery, fine. But I have a feeling there are quite a few alternatives available on the market that are more logical and easier to set up and run. On par with the set up for charging the Taycan. It is all there but not very easy or logic.

 

[Alaistair]

Yeah - I wouldn't have specified it.....but I couldn't wait a year for a new Taycan - so got a pre-owned, and I think it was pre-owned internally by Porsche UK. And it came with everything PMCC and HEM, so I thought I'd install that instead of getting a Zappi or similar. It was all in the trunk unopenned!

I don't have solar (yet).

So the HEM is on wired internet (as my electrical board is in my "server room" under the stairs.
The PMCC is in the garage and I've got it connected to WiFi (on the same LAN). So I can go in and admin them both on their web interfaces.

So do I need PLC as well - or will that complicate things?

And where do I tell the HEM about my PMCC.

Will only be connecting to a 32a single cuircuit as that's pretty much all you get in the UK.

 

[Pozuelo]

You must connect both the HEM and the PMCC to your LAN and PLC. You must connect through the webapp…c

 

[Scandinavian]

If it works and communicates with WiFi, then you do not need PLC. It can be useful if your garage with the PMCC is without WiFi coverage. So such setup should quite easy to do.

I also forgot that the combination of PMCC and HEM will give details about optimal charging and support charging on lower night rate etc.

 

[Pozuelo]

Not correct AFAIK. You need both, if you want to have it work properly. The connection to the LAN is for configuration but the control of the PMCC is done thru the PLC by the HEM.

 

[Alaistair]

Brill - thanks guys. I've set aside tomorrow to install the 32A cuircuit to my garage, so will then try more with setting up the PLC comms.

 

[Scandinavian]

Not correct AFAIK. You need both, if you want to have it work properly. The connection to the LAN is for configuration but the control of the PMCC is done thru the PLC by the HEM.

You might be correct. The guys that did the installation got it working from the beginning without PLC but I have stopped using the PMCC, since there were so many comms issues due to power cuts etc. It just sits there as a dumb box now. And I use the Tesla charger most of the time anyway now.

 

[Pozuelo]

I know it seems counter-intuitive, but after 3 days of trial-and-error and some advice from a half-informed installer, my brilliant electrician and I, we managed to get it all working properly. Has not failed once since July 2020.

 

[W1NGE]

Yeah - I wouldn't have specified it.....but I couldn't wait a year for a new Taycan - so got a pre-owned, and I think it was pre-owned internally by Porsche UK. And it came with everything PMCC and HEM, so I thought I'd install that instead of getting a Zappi or similar. It was all in the trunk unopenned!

I don't have solar (yet).

So the HEM is on wired internet (as my electrical board is in my "server room" under the stairs.
The PMCC is in the garage and I've got it connected to WiFi (on the same LAN). So I can go in and admin them both on their web interfaces.

So do I need PLC as well - or will that complicate things?

And where do I tell the HEM about my PMCC.

Will only be connecting to a 32a single cuircuit as that's pretty much all you get in the UK.

You can get 3 phase in UK but at a price.

Sounds like you don't need the HEM at this point - just get a dedicated 32A supply from your main board and you'll be fine for a max of 7.4kW which won't upset anything else in your home. In time if you go solar etc then the HEM may feature in that mix.

 

[AndiL]

Not correct AFAIK. You need both, if you want to have it work properly. The connection to the LAN is for configuration but the control of the PMCC is done thru the PLC by the HEM.

No, you don't need both. If the HEMS also has a wired connection to your local network, then PMCC does not need to have an active WIFI connection.

The PMCC is connected via the PLC connection to your local network and will get a normal IP address just as it would get for the wifi connection.

The problem with WIFI is that depending on the router, it will reconfigure once in a while, change the WLAN channels etc pp. And the EEBUS protocol which is used between the HEMS and the PMCC doesn't like that at all, since it sends a ping every second and the HEMS will stop controlling the charging if it won't get a ping response in time.

How do I know? I have my PMCC connected only via PLC to my local network, but I am not using the Porsche HEMS but developed my own EEBUS based energy management system.

So again, there is no need at all to have the PMCC connected to your local network via PLC AND WIFI at the same time.

 

[Pozuelo]

What I know is that without PLC it won’t work and if it is not connected to the LAN, there is no access to the webapp to be able to configure it or thru the Porsche Connect app. So for complete functionality you need the PLC between them, and an internet connection to your LAN for controlling both. My HEM is connected thru ethernet and thr PMCC thru wifi to my LAN.

Sponsored