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I’m looking for clarification prior to purchasing Emporia devices. I was about to create a new thread on the same topic before I noticed this one.
My primary objective is to use as much energy generation as possible when the sun shines rather than export it. I simply want to charge our cars exclusively using solar when possible.
That self-sustained EV charging scheme was working well enough via home automation (Rainforest Eagle using local / non-cloud data from my meter in addition to countless devices/rules on my Hubitat system) until Juice Box switched their service in January, 2023. Their switch away from Juice Net made the smart functions of that EV charger useless with the new app, there isn’t a web viewer anymore -and- they stopped supporting the API. They will not answer support mail … so I clearly need to move to a new brand.
I’m in the US and have two 200A electrical entrances. These are two different bills/electric meters.
- The House meter has a rather large side-line PV tap. The 3 string inverters total 17.7 kW so the panel at the ground mount array is 200A. The fused PV shut-down is 200A. That is well above the 50A CT limit per the conventional side-tap instructions in the manual, not to mention the fact that you aren’t going to be able to clip a pair of small 50A CTs onto that gauge wiring, so I think two Vue Energy Monitors would be needed (in order to use 4 total 200A CTs) on this building alone. There is not any room to simply add CTs directly at the meter without a large amount of added cost in my option. Photo during the install: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Wg5bhxqLuAcrwSZe9
Using the Utility Connect device would make sense here but I don’t want to sacrifice my Rainforest device that supports local networking with something that may not integrate with my home automation at all and/or may not aggregate correctly.
- The Garage meter is where we primarily charge our EVs. It runs on grid power currently but will have a separate roof mount PV system in the Fall of this year. Those details are still in the permitting stage but this will be a 5kW string inverter tied into that panel (since it won’t be so large that a side-line tap is required).
A single Vue Energy Monitor -or- the Utility Connect device could work on this building.
What I’m looking to do here is have energy monitors setup to aggregate data so that at least one Emporia EV charger can be set to charge at the rate of total exported power.
I do not think aggregation was ever implemented … but is that possible under one user account if you are willing to purchase 2 (or possibly 3) total Energy Monitors -and- add at least one EV charger? If my solar production ends up showing up as usage (like this https://community.emporiaenergy.com/topic/total-usage-calculation) that won’t work as intended at all.
