Emporia and energy management.

[nuMach]

If new to getting an L2 charger and need to consider an energy management controller since your panel may be loaded up, or service size is 100A, eg. - read this.
In canadian $ an EMC controller was $900 for me, though saved me a new upgraded service installation.


Emporia is now selling a bundle of the L2 charger and a Gen2 Vue with just current taps for mains. ~$50 more than charger alone.
This makes it the least expensive energy managed L2 charger installation out there.
You can buy the vue also with 8 or 16 current taps for individual circuit monitoring on top of just panel load.

Having purchased the Emporia L2 back when, this combo wasn't available. Info is scarce on their web site so -
I called Emporia tech support recently, and the guy said they need to connect to my emporia L2 and update the firmware, ~$250 us, if I was to buy the Vue now separately to use it to set charge rate so as not to overload the main service when the house load gets high.

Of course I had to experiment, so got a Vue 2nd gen base unit with mains sensors. and added to my panel.

After adding it to the Emporia app on my phone, i now had the L2 charger and the Vue.
Selected 'peak demand management' on the app, picked the Vue, and the L2 charger showed as a smart device to manage.
You also have to set a house load in KWhrs .... been testing different thresholds.
Set the slider to enable, and the rest is pure magic.

So when I did my original charger install - the inspector noted I have electric furnace, heat pump, electric hot water .... etc.
I had to add an energy management controller and configure it for 50A
if the load is 30a or greater in the home, that is 80+a of my 100A service, then it drops out the L2 when it kicks in. 15min delay for retry .. repeat.

I can switch on enough stuff in the house to force the EMC to activate, but it completely shuts off my L2 controller. In normal use, its not been an issue so far this season.



The emporia plus emporia solution throttles the charge rate of the L2 charger, vs cutting it off. Depending how much house load there is, it lets me charge at an amount that keeps things balanced. And it has several levels it selects automatically with no intervention.

Experimenting with different KWhr thresholds - and had it so while my range was cycling during a self clean cycle, the L2 charger reduced to 50% of its normal charge rate. Nice graphs with house load up, charger down ..... every few minutes as the oven maintained temp.

Going to evaluate this setup, but looks like I can remove the EMC box ($900), and continue with the Emporia combination for emc , and likely not suffer a complete shutdown of the L2 charger as house loads vary.

Much smarter solution IMHO.


Those looking for EMS requirements for their install - this is something to look into.


The line support was giving me may have referred to much older Emporia L2 chargers.
I bought mine in June 2023, and the bundle I noted being promoted in Oct. Obviously tech support are 1) wrong, or 2) luckily my L2 is new enough to have current firmware.

Sponsored

 

[music_cities]

I ordered an Emporia charger today, but it turns out the most reasonable electrician quote for running 240V out to my garage was one that included a EVEMS. I'm not sure why they were a little bit cheaper than the other electricians, even with the EVEMS.

The reason I still ordered the Emporia is I'm planning on buying solar, and with solar installed I can save the distribution fees on electricity if I charge when the sun is shining. It sounds like the Emporia charging to the Emporia electricity monitoring system can also turn on the charger based on the current amounts from solar.

 

[markboris]

I have 2 Emporia EV chargers and 3 circuit breaker panels each with an Emporia Vue energy monitoring system. I really like the flexibility and ease of energy control I have for my EV charging. Also it's great to monitor all my circuits to view what is really using the power and when.

There are 4 different options for EV charging:
1. During my utility rate plan's off-peak hours
2. A custom schedule
3. Peak demand
4. Excess solar (my default setting)

Thought I would share some screen captures of my system. These were all taken in the early morning so very little power is being used. I view my graphs in kWh, but you can set it to amperage or other units of measurements.

Main Panel:

Backup Panel:

Sub Panel:

EV charge options:
Schedules, Peak Demand, Excess Solar (which is what mine is normally set on)

Off-Peak hour charging based on my utility rate plan:

99% of the time I charge only on Excess Solar. Below are recent excess solar charging sessions:

If I need to charge during the evening or anytime there isn't solar, my Powerwalls charge the car. Recent Powerwall charge session:

For the very rare times I need to charge from the grid, I turn on the off-peak grid schedule which I recently needed to do. Off-peak grid charging from 21% to 100% SOC:

 

[nuMach]

I ordered an Emporia charger today, but it turns out the most reasonable electrician quote for running 240V out to my garage was one that included a EVEMS. I'm not sure why they were a little bit cheaper than the other electricians, even with the EVEMS.

The reason I still ordered the Emporia is I'm planning on buying solar, and with solar installed I can save the distribution fees on electricity if I charge when the sun is shining. It sounds like the Emporia charging to the Emporia electricity monitoring system can also turn on the charger based on the current amounts from solar.

Here's a screenshot of the app...... it appears the functionality is to use excess solar to turn on the L2 charger. I dont have solar or generation, so cant verify details, other than its in the initial config of the Vue Gen2. Mine shows unavailable as I didnt configure solar/generation on my initial Vue setup.

 

[mke]

@markboris , @EmporiaEnergy

I am curious if the Emporia EVSE can be set up to run like this:

1. During day time (let’s say 6am-7pm), charge with excess solar.
2. During night time (7pm to 6am), allow the car to freely draw power from EVSE.

The intention is to charge with solar, while allowing car to draw power from EVSE for BMS and preconditioning.

I plan to plug in the Mach-E whenever it’s parked, and set up the Mach-E to charge during daytime only (6am-7pm, to match with Emporia EVSE setting).

 

[markboris]

@markboris , @EmporiaEnergy

I am curious if the Emporia EVSE can be set up to run like this:

1. During day time (let’s say 6am-7pm), charge with excess solar.
2. During night time (7pm to 6am), allow the car to freely draw power from EVSE.

The intention is to charge with solar, while allowing car to draw power from EVSE for BMS and preconditioning.

I plan to plug in the Mach-E whenever it’s parked, and set up the Mach-E to charge during daytime only (6am-7pm, to match with Emporia EVSE setting).

I don't know because I've never set it up like that. 99% of the time I have the Emporia EVSE "management" set to "Excess Solar" so my car charges during the day on solar. If for whatever reason the car is low on charge and I need it car fully charged by the next morning, I switch the management setting to schedule and it will start charging the car at midnight when my off-peak hours start. I've never had both management settings on at the same time but it can be set that way. I do not have ANY charge settings set in the Mach-E at all. I let the EVSE control the charging.

I'm sure Emporia will chime in also.

Sponsored