EVSE Home Assessment Reports

[LEAFer]

Other interesting commentary on leafowner.com (join if you're looking for even more Leaf info and/or another way to spend time on the Internets):

EVSE requires a dedicated 40 Amp circuit that uses 12 gauge wire.

#12 wire ? Yeah, for like, a 20A circuit, not 40A ! :roll:

 

[mwalsh]

#12 wire ? Yeah, for like, a 20A circuit, not 40A ! :roll:

That's what the guy on Leafowner said he was told. :?

 

[EVDRIVER]

#12 wire ? Yeah, for like, a 20A circuit, not 40A ! :roll:

That's what the guy on Leafowner said he was told. :?

12G- No thanks! But it will give you 3.3kw. Seems like the charger is not changing perhaps

 

[evnow]

Seems like the charger is not changing perhaps

I'd say the chances of a late change like that is close to zero ....

 

[mwalsh]

So insist on a higher gauge of wire for your EVSE install, in anticipation of future developments (whether they be Leaf or not)?

 

[sjfotos]

#12 wire ? Yeah, for like, a 20A circuit, not 40A ! :roll:

That's what the guy on Leafowner said he was told. :?

12G- No thanks! But it will give you 3.3kw. Seems like the charger is not changing perhaps

After talking with my electrician, I am going with 8 gauge.

 

[EVDRIVER]

[
After talking with my electrician, I am going with 8 gauge.[/quote]


All my 240 EV charge drops are 6. If you are running the wire already a little more cost covers you long term. Just a thought and you have plenty of headroom, most electricians don't like working with large wire, I work with them weekly.

 

[Posterboy]

"Shorter cable? No clue why someone would take 15' over 25'. Unless they were absolutely sure 15' would be all they'd ever need and didn't want to trip over the excess?"

I'll help you with this one as my installer answered it for me today. Although a 25' cable is an option, apparently the charger cable holder will only accomidate wrapping 15' worth of cable. The remaining 10' of cable would therefore have to be dealt with in some other manner when not in use in order to avoid driving or tripping over it, etc.

 

[garygid]

The AV cable holder can handle only two loops of cable, and not four ... very unlikely. If true, maybe a reason to avoid such a design?

On the other hand, the e-fuel cord is supposed to "disconnect" if the car rolls away, and maybe any cord left on the "hanger" while charging will keep the "disconnect" from working?

 

[Posterboy]

I was refering to driving over the extra 10' of unaccomidated cord lying on the garage floor, not driving away with the cord still connected to the car. :lol:

 

[hill]

The AV electrician just left here. The contractor is Aliso Electric for my area.

General information, word of mouth from the AV guy to my electrician, so take with a grain of salt:
* Mine was only his second assessment. Someone in Newport Coast with a Tesla who's also getting a Leaf was his first appointment this morning.
* EVSE installations will begin October 1
* First Leaf deliveries will be around Dec 21
* My area will be among the first, but he had no real concrete info about San Diego timing

For my electrical installation:
1. My 100A panel will not need to be upgraded. I don't have house air conditioning or a pool or spa and no other large amperage hogs. He was only concerned about physical space on the panel and the physical location of my 30A solar system breakers in terms of heat generation and "nuisance" breaker trips due to heat. We found a 20A breaker that doesn't seem to power anything, so that may be able to be removed and provide extra space.

2. He'll give me a quote for a Southern Cal Edison (SCE) TOU meter, already mentioned by others, that will attach to the grid side of the panel and possibly make things even easier in terms of not disturbing the existing panel. He didn't know about SCE's charges for the additional meter, if any, or any additional monthly charges. He plans to find out in the next few days because he know's he'll be asked about that constantly.

3. My panel is mounted on the exterior wall of my rear bedroom wing and not convenient to the garage. He'll run conduit through an attic and across a patio cover to the garage and then flex conduit inside the garage. The run was estimated at 60 feet, which is longer than the 35 foot run that Nissan has been quoting as standard. I take that to mean extra cost for the materials and labor for the longer run. This may also mean that my City will require a cutoff switch in the garage since the main panel is not in line-of-sight to the EVSE.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . snip

Grain of Salt, yes ... and that IS the operative word here. (though I don't have a license to do either PV or breaker/panel installs) Consider the following:

SCE DID AWAY with new TOU applications October of last year. This contracter obviously doesn't even know that you can no longer get it:
http://www.sce.com/residential/rates/special-time-of-use.htm
Therefore yes ... "grain of salt".

Our PV uses TWO 30amp breakers (PV feed in from TWO 4Kw inverters) and even though we have a 225amp panel, we STILL needed to upgrade our low amp main breaker to 200amp. All that to say, "GET a 2ND OPINION" from a PV installer, as to whether you need more than a 100amp panel ... ESPECIALLY if you're installing a 240v charger. PV installers seem to know WAY better when it comes to panel size/main breaker requirements / dynamics of power feeding from multiple directions. Better to find out NOW, than when the city inspecter comes out and calls the AV plan an abortion waiting to happen.
"Grain of Salt"

I've been told by TWO licensed electricians that the charger should use a 40amp breaker because it has the ability to draw about 7% OVER 30 amps. In any event, the very long run of wire you're planning means you'll need a more expensive / larger guage of wire, too.

Lastly, we got a call yeaterday from AV. ANOTHER call. The first call was to CANCEL our assessment date on July 2nd. Reschedueled to the 5th. The 2nd call was to cancel or reschedueled date for July 5. Over the decades, we've watched EV's of all sorts turn to vapor ware . . . . so we know how to be patient. Then Nissan says "Next big anouncement will be June 30" (or earlier). Nothing. Then AV cancels us. Then AV cancels us again. This whole process is predictably going south - and going slow ... so like you said ... grain of salt.

 

[mwalsh]

SCE DID AWAY with new TOU applications October of last year.

No, they did away with two types of TOU - TOU-D-1 and TOU-D-2. Probably because they were a really, really good deal. You can still get on TOU-D-T, TOU-D-TEV, and TOU-EV-1.

TOU-D-T is like the old whole house TOU except that it's tiered.
TOU-D-TEV is whole house tiered, but with EV charging on a specific "super off-peak" schedule and rate.
TOU-EV-1 is EV charging on it's own TOU meter with the rest of the house on any other available rate program you wish.

 

[LEAFer]

TOU-D-TEV is whole house tiered, but with EV charging on a specific super off-peak schedule and rate.

On that rate, without the benefit of a second meter (like TOU-EV-1) how do they know what usage to assign to the car, as opposed to something else (hot tub, laundry, my new jiga-watt time-machine, ...) ?

 

[Boomer23]

hill, thanks for your comments. I appreciate any input related to my EVSE install, and I don't claim to have any special knowledge except what I can pick up as I go along here online and speaking with professionals. Therefore, your comments are valued and I will take them into consideration as I move forward.

That said, I believe that SCE currently DOES have TOU rates for EV charging. Here is a link to their current rate page under their "PEV" (plug in vehicle) topic: http://www.sce.com/PowerandEnvironment/ElectricTransportation/PEV/rates.htm
It may be that they canceled the specific TOU rate structures that you referred to, but they certainly have TOU programs in place. In addition, I have communicated with a PEV specialist at SCE and he confirmed that I can have a Net Metering agreement with them for my solar PV usage as well as having a TOU rate structure in place. I don't have details about how these two programs would integrate, and it will certainly depend on which of the two TOU rates programs I select, Whole House TOU or EV TOU.

The electrician openly admitted to needing more information from SCE about their TOU meters, the charges for same, and whether a TOU meter is available as an option for my application. He said that he would be contacting them very soon because he'll need to know this information to complete my cost estimate. This is all new to most of us, so learning is happening on all fronts.

I fully intend to install a 40 amp breaker. I may have been misleading in my post in saying that I may be able to replace an existing 20 amp breaker that appears not to be used. I'll use the space that breaker occupies to position a new 40 amp breaker. As far as the gauge of the transmission wire to the garage, I'll probably select 6g wire to allow for a future higher capacity charger.

Lastly, the electrician who did the evaluation does have experience with solar PV systems. He installs residential systems and he said that he also has more than 3 years of experience with commercial sized solar PV systems. So I do trust his knowledge regarding that aspect.

It sounds like you have some healthy skepticism earned by hard experience in the EV wild wild west. That's great for all of us and I appreciate your cautions. From what I could tell from the electrician, who had started his day paired with a AV specialist, things were rolling along as planned from their perspective. Understanding that these electricians are community contractors who are contracted with AV, but who have other jobs as their main gig, it isn't surprising that some changes of schedule could happen as a consequence of their business needs.

I'll be very interested to hear your report of your evaluation visit. Thanks again.

 

[mwalsh]

On that rate, without the benefit of a second meter (like TOU-EV-1) how do they know what usage to assign to the car, as opposed to something else (hot tub, laundry, my new jiga-watt time-machine, ...) ?

I wondered that too. My guess is that they guess? :lol: No, they probably restrict EV charging to a specific time period and also have a reasonable understanding of what your normal household use should be during that time period otherwise. That would be my best guess without talking to them.

 

[mitch672]

TOU-D-TEV is whole house tiered, but with EV charging on a specific super off-peak schedule and rate.

On that rate, without the benefit of a second meter (like TOU-EV-1) how do they know what usage to assign to the car, as opposed to something else (hot tub, laundry, my new jiga-watt time-machine, ...) ?

probably by looking at the same load nearly every night, during off peak hours, then assuming that would be the EV charging.. of course the usage will be different based on the miles driven each day, but most likely it will fall into some type of repeatable pattern (or nearly so)

 

[Boomer23]

On the 25 foot cable length issue: So we may need to mount a large hook next to the EVSE to handle the other loops of cable while not in use. Not a big deal.

I think that there may be an issue of not wanting to have the extra length of cable in multiple loops WHILE CHARGING. Others have discussed this, and I guess the conclusion was that the heat issue at that coiled cable probably isn't a problem, but maybe that depends on how many coils you have and how tightly the cable is coiled. If the Leaf is parked right next to the EVSE, we might need to lay out the 25 foot cable in some lazy loops along the garage floor.

 

[EVDRIVER]

On the 25 foot cable length issue: So we may need to mount a large hook next to the EVSE to handle the other loops of cable while not in use. Not a big deal.

I think that there may be an issue of not wanting to have the extra length of cable in multiple loops WHILE CHARGING. Others have discussed this, and I guess the conclusion was that the heat issue at that coiled cable probably isn't a problem, but maybe that depends on how many coils you have and how tightly the cable is coiled. If the Leaf is parked right next to the EVSE, we might need to lay out the 25 foot cable in some lazy loops along the garage floor.

You won't have a heat issue, if you do you have wire that is far undersized for the application. Just coil it on the wall, if there were that much heat you would have a larger issue.

 

[DaveEV]

Our PV uses TWO 30amp breakers (PV feed in from TWO 4Kw inverters) and even though we have a 225amp panel, we STILL needed to upgrade our low amp main breaker to 200amp.

There's a good reason you had to "upgrade" your 225A main breaker to 220A when you added 2 30A breakers for PV.

Your main panel is only rated at 225A. So if you have a main breaker at 225A and 60A of PV, you can now feed your panel with 285A - well above the panels rating.

But the NEC realizes that by putting your PV breakers on the opposite end of the panels' bus-bar, no single point of the bar will exceed the size of your main breaker - but even then, they only let you feed in an additional 20% of the panel's rating.

So 225A * 20% = 45A - the maximum PV you can feed into your panel while keeping your main breaker at 225A.

Since you have 60A of PV you want to feed into your panel, your options are to upgrade your service/panel to a 300A, or downsize your main breaker by 15A. 210A breakers aren't that common, so they just downsized it to 200A.

When doing this you typically have to perform a whole-house load analysis to make sure your main breaker is still sized sufficiently to avoid accidentally tripping the breaker when the PV system isn't generating power.

 

[LEAFer]

On the 25 foot cable length issue: So we may need to mount a large hook next to the EVSE to handle the other loops of cable while not in use. Not a big deal.

I think that there may be an issue of not wanting to have the extra length of cable in multiple loops WHILE CHARGING. Others have discussed this, and I guess the conclusion was that the heat issue at that coiled cable probably isn't a problem, but maybe that depends on how many coils you have and how tightly the cable is coiled. If the Leaf is parked right next to the EVSE, we might need to lay out the 25 foot cable in some lazy loops along the garage floor.

You won't have a heat issue, if you do you have wire that is far undersized for the application. Just coil it on the wall, if there were that much heat you would have a larger issue.

It's an "inductor" issue. You're creating an inductance and heat associated therewith. When tightly coiled and improperly stored while carrying a large current a heat build up could cause a fire.