BrockWI
Well-known member
I know this isn't likely, but we have the Clipper Creek HSC-40 and it works great. The thing is we have 3kw of solar panels and a 6kw inverter (xantrex xw6048) / battery setup for most of the loads in our house. So I am wondering if I can somehow "dial back" the evse, either on the car end or the evse end, to the 3.3 rate so I can run it from our solar setup off the inverter panel. I have been using the 120vac charger if were home during the day and that works, but doesn't use up enough power from the panels.
I did try running the evse and it did start and ran maxing out the inverter while pulling 3kw from solar and 3kw from the batteries. I don't think the inverter would handle much more (ie. fridge kicking in or micro running) for a long time at that load, but a 3.3kw load should be not problem with breathing rooms for other loads.
I know I should have thought this through more before I got here, but here I am... I thought about stock evse upgrade, but if there is a way to do this without spending more $ that would be ideal. I don't think spending a couple of hundred will ever payback, even though I could charge from solar. Ideally I would like a 3 / 6 kw manual switch on the evse.
A little back ground we have off peak electricity rate and when we hit the on peak (9a to 7p) it opens the contactor to the inverter panel and the inverter takes over those loads so we essentially have no on-peak usage. Since we recently added an additional 1kw of solar pv we make more than we can use. Initially I did look in to grid tie, but our local utility wouldn't allow a battery backup and had to be on it's own meter with no downstream loads, grid tie only, which defeated our intention of having a solar backup system if the grid went down.
Thoughts?
I did try running the evse and it did start and ran maxing out the inverter while pulling 3kw from solar and 3kw from the batteries. I don't think the inverter would handle much more (ie. fridge kicking in or micro running) for a long time at that load, but a 3.3kw load should be not problem with breathing rooms for other loads.
I know I should have thought this through more before I got here, but here I am... I thought about stock evse upgrade, but if there is a way to do this without spending more $ that would be ideal. I don't think spending a couple of hundred will ever payback, even though I could charge from solar. Ideally I would like a 3 / 6 kw manual switch on the evse.
A little back ground we have off peak electricity rate and when we hit the on peak (9a to 7p) it opens the contactor to the inverter panel and the inverter takes over those loads so we essentially have no on-peak usage. Since we recently added an additional 1kw of solar pv we make more than we can use. Initially I did look in to grid tie, but our local utility wouldn't allow a battery backup and had to be on it's own meter with no downstream loads, grid tie only, which defeated our intention of having a solar backup system if the grid went down.
Thoughts?
