SMA EV Charger in the Energy Management System
The EV Charger is an AC charging station that is designed for unidirectional charging of a vehicle. The SMA EV Charger along with the Sunny Home Manager 2.0 makes an intelligent charging station for the SMA Energy System Home. If the EV Charger is operated without the Sunny Home Manager 2.0, the modes for intelligent charging are not available.
Properties of charging modes
The EV Charger has 3 charging modes that can be switched between. The effect of the setting on the charging mode is described below.
Icon | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Fast charging The vehicle is charged with the maximum available power. There is no optimization here with regard to electricity costs and the use of PV energy. The charging power is limited by the maximum charging power of the vehicle, the house connection and the EV Charger. |
| Intelligent charging - Charging with PV surplus The vehicle is charged with excess PV energy that would otherwise be fed into the utility grid or cut off. The Sunny Portal is used to set how high the proportion of excess PV energy must be in order for the EV Charger to charge the vehicle. The Sunny Home Manager schedules the charging by the EV Charger only as soon as it can fulfill the set optimization target. Depending on the configuration of the priority of the optional appliances, the EV Charger is taken into account by Sunny Home Manager before or after other appliances when scheduling. In this charging mode, it is not possible to ensure that the vehicle is charged in all cases. If the surplus PV energy is not sufficient for charging, no charging takes place. In this case, the optionally available home storage is not discharged for charging the electric vehicle. |
| Intelligent charging - Charging with specified target The EV Charger is operated as a necessary appliance with as much surplus PV energy as possible. By entering a departure time and an amount of energy to be charged in the SMA Energy App, the Sunny Home Manager intelligently plans the charging process. The Sunny Home Manager enables charging at minimum cost and with maximum utilization of PV power with sufficient charging to reach the destination at the entered departure time. If there is no sufficiently excess PV energy available to achieve the charging goal, the optionally available home storage is first discharged for charging the electric vehicle before the grid-supplied power finally ensures the readiness for departure. After sufficient charging for the target range, the EV Charger automatically switches to Charging with PV surplus. |
Multi-EVC operation mode
Multi-EVC operation is supported from firmware version 1.02.##.R and allows the connection of a maximum of 3 SMA EV Chargers. Mixed systems with single-phase charging stations (EVC7.4-1AC-10) and three-phase charging stations (EVC22-3AC-10) are possible.
In multi-EVC operation mode, all charging stations must be connected to the utility grid on a rolling basis.
The Sunny Home Manager provides the charging stations with information on the number of active charging stations every minute.
In multi-EVC operation mode, if multiple charging stations are charging a vehicle and there is a two-phase charging vehicle among the vehicles, this vehicle is limited to single-phase charging for symmetry reasons.
If communication between Sunny Home Manager and the charging stations fails, only single-phase or three-phase charging vehicles can be charged. Two-phase charging vehicles are also limited to single-phase charging in this case. You can set fallback values that take effect in the event of a communication breakdown.
Limiting a two-phase charging vehicle to single-phase charging
In multi-EVC mode, the maximum charging current is limited to ensure overload protection (maximum charging current/number of active charging stations). If, for example, 3 charging stations are connected to a point of interconnection with a nominal current of 35 A, the charging current is limited as follows:
1 active charging station: 32 A
2 active charging stations: 17.5 A per charging station
3 active charging stations: 11.67 A per charging station
Note that loads with high power consumption can cause the charging stations to disconnect from the utility grid to ensure overload protection.
Charge current limitation
Circuitry Overview
System with 1 SMA EV Charger
Circuitry overview (example with 1 EVC22-3AC-10)
Three-phase system with up to 3 SMA EV Chargers
Circuitry overview (example with 3 EVC22-3AC-10)