Scheduled charging - optimisation of the amperage

[ndw8790]

hi

It's possible to plan a car charge with an amount of kWh and the finishing time + the maximum price per kWh and the minimum and maximum aperage to be used.

But actually, if the car only has to take 20 kWh in a span of 6 hours, there's no real need to use the maximum power that has been set for the charger.

It might a be an idea to "power optimise" the amperage.

(background: in Belgium we pay a network fee for the highed peak per 15 minutes we had in the month. If it's necessary to charge fast, it's ok to pay. But if not, this might save me money :-D )

best regards,

Nicolas

[RenatusRo]

Currently there is no off-the-shelf solution for this as the planner does not take into account the limits imposed by load management (and limiting the current is load management in a sense)
This problem is addressed in the backlog #14261

one can use the existing framework and some external logic to work around current limitations:
#21970 (comment)
For us this works quite well in Flemish context.

(not the first time this question pops up:
#11324 )

[ndw8790]

hi Renatus

Yep, we're talking about the same things. Sorry, sometimes it's hard to find how to describe functional things.

It's indeed an option to manually change the max load on the charger to spread the charging time.

One additional thing: i configured the "maxPower" in the "loadmanagement" integration.

I thought this would limit the charger dynamically, but it doesn't seem to have any influence, it just notifies if the maxpower is exceeded.

best regards,

Nicolas

[RenatusRo]

maxPower should in effect limit the chargers power - it's the very task.
Is the circuit of the loadpoint assigned correctly?

[ndw8790]

I'm not a programmer, but I think so yes

name: main # unique name, used as reference, e.g. as parent in other circuits
title: Main Circuit # used in the UI
#maxcurrent: 63 # 63A main circuit breaker (optional)
maxPower: 8000 # 30kW (optional)
meter: grid1 # associated meter to monitor the power consumption (optional)

And it didn't limit grid consumption to 8kW during charging last night

[RenatusRo]

show me the settings of the loadpoint.
the loadpoint needs a reference to the circuit
circuit: main

[ndw8790]

hi Renatus

I hadn't defined the circuit in the loadpoint config.

But when I do, EVCC doesn't want to start:

loadpoint: [lp-1] circuit: not found: main

this is a part of my evcc.yaml:

circuits:

• name: main
  title: 'Main Circuit'
  maxPower: 8000
  meter: grid1

loadpoints:

• title: Woning
  charger: Woning
  mode: pv
  #circuit: main
• title: Schuur
  charger: Schuur
  mode: pv
  #circuit: main

[RenatusRo]

sorry to hear that: it will be a nifty little error in the yaml.
be patient.
keep retrying.
simplify your setup as much as you can to start with.
find examples.
if still no success: post the complete yaml (learning how to properly format it in github is part of the overall learning curve)

[ndw8790]

hi Renatus

I disabled the circuits configuration in the yaml file and added it in the UI configuration.

In the yaml file, I activated the circuit on the loadpoint configuration.

Now, evcc starts up without errors.

Let's see if it works...