Siemens’ game-changing EV charger and solar adapter

[redneck]

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I came across this and thought it might help someone here.


Siemens’ new home EV charger adapter ends need for electrical panel upgrades.

https://electrek.co/2022/07/27/sieme...arger-adapter/

Siemens and Philadelphia-based ConnectDER have partnered to debut a groundbreaking simple home EV charger connector. Previously, homeowners who wanted to install EV chargers might have had to spend thousands of dollars to modify their home’s electrical panel. This new proprietary plug-in adapter will eliminate that cost and allow installation and connection in minutes.



Siemens’ game-changing EV charger adapter

ConnectDER makes meter collars (pictured above) that are installed between the home’s meter and the meter socket to create a single plug-and-play access point for distributed energy resources (DER) installation. In other words, the collars easily add new electrical service capacity for things like solar and energy storage.

Now ConnectDER will exclusively manufacture and supply a proprietary plug-in EV charger adapter to Siemens.

The new adapter will enable electric car owners to charge their EVs by connecting chargers directly through the meter socket, which is on every home. It provides more useable capacity by monitoring total load and controlling the EV circuit to ensure the total capacity rating is within the limit.

Bypassing the electrical panel reduces the EV charger installation cost by around 60 to 80% because electrical panel upgrades aren’t needed.

ConnectDER

https://connectder.com/

Get solar, EVs, and energy storage quickly on the home and working seamlessly with the grid.

A cheap easy way to add solar and EV charging to a home.

It looks like a win-win to me…




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[redpoint5]

Neat idea. You'd need a hole in the garage wall to get the charging cable to the cars parked inside though, or is this mainly intended to be used outdoors?

Are utilities approving this modification?

[oil pan 4]

That's just a fancier meter adaptor base.
Solar installs have been using something like that for years.
They were in wide use before UL approved all panels for 100% normal capacity plus an additional 20% for renewable power, allowing them to run at 120%.
Prior to 2014 say you had a 200 amp panel and wanted to add 10kw of solar. The concern was that would potentially allow you panel to handle about 240 amps. So what you had to do was down breaker your 200 amp panel to say 150 with a 150 amp breaker. If smaller mains breakers for your panel were discontinued or never available you were SOL and had to get a panel upgrade, or you add a tie in directory to the meter base.
It was an easy solution to what turned out to be a non-problem.

[redpoint5]

I don't get what the problem is. If you feed in 10 kW of solar through a breaker in the panel, it doesn't increase the amps going through the mains in any way and would still have to feed through the 200 A breaker regardless of net surplus or net consumption.

Oh wait, you're saying the bus bars themselves could cumulatively see the full 200 A service plus whatever solar is throwing on the bus?

Do the aluminum lines from the transformer have say 10 kW overhead capacity in addition to the 200 A service to the house? Do the meters have that? I'm assuming they do, but then why were they overbuilt in the first place?

You're still going to need a penetration into the garage, which I suppose isn't a big deal. I've got a hole in my wall for the solar inverter.

[oil pan 4]

Worst case scenario is the panel has 200 amps from the overhead service coming in plus 40 amps of solar. Prior to a few years worth of UL testing the over blown worry was that some portion of the main pannel bus bar would have 240 amps flowing through it and that would burn up the panel.
Well UL tested it, a lot and it turns out modern breaker panels are very robust.
Besides, its almost impossible for a single family in a single home to use a 200 amp panel at capacity.
The only way I could see a 200 amp panel being maxed out is if a home were supplying electricity to several occupied campers, say your family lived on your property.

[Piotrsko]

Who has a 200amp panel originally installed on a 80 year old house? repanel/upgrade, yes but I have cotton wire insulation on my some of my house wiring.

New modern breakers? Fugettaboutit. Replacement breakers? Aint gonna happen. Sub boxes, maybe if there's enough wire in the panel to move the circuit or space in the panel to put in another couple of wires. I dont have any more neutral posts either.

[redpoint5]

Here's the panel of the house I grew up in. It already has a subpanel from when laundry appliances arrived, and a line was run to the barn, LOL

[Piotrsko]

Gas dryer then? Will your provider let you install this thing on your meter?

[oil pan 4]

Yeah electric cars aren't for everyone.

My house had 1 main panel and 2 sub panels and the subs were not wired correctly.
Now I have 6 sub panels and I'll probably end up with about 9 eventually.