Charge Station Pro and Home Integration System self-install

[FlybyWire]

All - thank you for the great info here so far. We took delivery of our lightning a few weeks ago and received our 80A Ford Pro Station Charger on Monday. We are working through a lot of the same issues as others on here. We are not in a Sunrun state (nor does it sound like they are any good to work with anyway). We are using a local solar company to install solar at our residence in the month or so, awaiting delivery at this time. We planned to go with Enphrase micro-inverters on all our panels. However I am revisiting this with the solar company, as I will already have an investment in the HIS and if so, hoping to run 10kW of the panels off this bi-directional inverter vs. paying for all the microinverters.

When building our house a year ago we tried to prepare for our future Lightning by prewiring a 100A line to the garage. At the time the electrician suggested putting in a 100A sub-panel as the best way to do this. Now I'm not so sure. Regardless - we have 100A panel in our garage with a few items on it (lights, 15A outlets, garage doors, and a garage AC). Fortunately our basement is unfinished and we still have access to run wires.

With these considerations, I have the following questions that I am hoping someone can help me with.
Questions are as follows:

1. Can I run the FSCP on that 100A panel, without being detrimental to enabling home backup power? I had read somewhere that the FSCP has to be wired directly to your main panel and not to a sub-panel for home integration, is there any truth to this?
1a. I'm aware that likely the FSCP and the AC unit won't be able to run at the same time on the sub-panel, but I plan to either mitigate this with scheduling or by re-running a the AC back to my main panel to get it off of the sub-panel.

2. It appears that a a 2 strand #8 AWG wire is required to run from the FSCP to the HIS. Is there anything else that needs to be run from the FSCP to the main panel or to the HIS that I need to be aware of? *Especially important before we close up the walls in the basement.

3. I recognize y'all aren't solar experts, however, does anyone see an issue with running half our solar panels to the Sunrun bi-directional inverter and the other half through the enphase microinverters? We will have a 22kW system when it is all said and done.

4. Currently we have no other battery planned for our solar system. I am having a hard time understanding why you need one other than the truck in order to use your solar system when the grid is down. Can someone explain to me why the F-150 can't just act exactly as a powerwall does during a system blackout, in order to continue to generate power from our solar?

Thanks for your time. And thanks especially to the guys who have posted pics/diagrams and contact info for Delta. Immensely helpful.

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[BIC]

Having a Powerwall or similar might be useful if the Lightening is on a road trip or in the repair or body shop. With the supply chain issues, some folks have their vehicles sitting in the repair or body shops for several months awaiting parts. Or, you sell the Lightening in favor of a good old ICE F-150. Odds are probably small, but something to consider.

 

[cvalue13]

Can someone explain to me why the F-150 can't just act exactly as a powerwall does during a system blackout, in order to continue to generate power from our solar?

Or, you sell the Lightening in favor of a good old ICE F-150.

or sell it for any other vehicle, ICE, BEV, or otherwise. for me, that is the biggest drawback of the HIS generally, and certainly one of a few reasons one might want to instead have a system-specific battery backup

otherwise, outside the battery backup functionality, how well does a lighting function for the more general day-to-day utilizations of a battery system (assuming the requisite utility charging approaches)?

for one thing, unless the truck is plugged in of course it won’t help to directly utilize the solar power or to assist in peak shaving, etc. (if applicable)

otherwise, even when plugged in, just how capable is this HIS + Lightning in performing such day-to-day functions compared to alternative permanent battery solutions? I haven’t yet understood the answer to that clearly.

no doubt that having the HIS + Lightning will be somewhat redundant to a separate stand-alone battery system, and to that extent I can see not doing both.

 

[PiMatrix]

All - thank you for the great info here so far. We took delivery of our lightning a few weeks ago and received our 80A Ford Pro Station Charger on Monday. We are working through a lot of the same issues as others on here. We are not in a Sunrun state (nor does it sound like they are any good to work with anyway). We are using a local solar company to install solar at our residence in the month or so, awaiting delivery at this time. We planned to go with Enphrase micro-inverters on all our panels. However I am revisiting this with the solar company, as I will already have an investment in the HIS and if so, hoping to run 10kW of the panels off this bi-directional inverter vs. paying for all the microinverters.

When building our house a year ago we tried to prepare for our future Lightning by prewiring a 100A line to the garage. At the time the electrician suggested putting in a 100A sub-panel as the best way to do this. Now I'm not so sure. Regardless - we have 100A panel in our garage with a few items on it (lights, 15A outlets, garage doors, and a garage AC). Fortunately our basement is unfinished and we still have access to run wires.

With these considerations, I have the following questions that I am hoping someone can help me with.
Questions are as follows:

1. Can I run the FSCP on that 100A panel, without being detrimental to enabling home backup power? I had read somewhere that the FSCP has to be wired directly to your main panel and not to a sub-panel for home integration, is there any truth to this?
1a. I'm aware that likely the FSCP and the AC unit won't be able to run at the same time on the sub-panel, but I plan to either mitigate this with scheduling or by re-running a the AC back to my main panel to get it off of the sub-panel.

2. It appears that a a 2 strand #8 AWG wire is required to run from the FSCP to the HIS. Is there anything else that needs to be run from the FSCP to the main panel or to the HIS that I need to be aware of? *Especially important before we close up the walls in the basement.

3. I recognize y'all aren't solar experts, however, does anyone see an issue with running half our solar panels to the Sunrun bi-directional inverter and the other half through the enphase microinverters? We will have a 22kW system when it is all said and done.

4. Currently we have no other battery planned for our solar system. I am having a hard time understanding why you need one other than the truck in order to use your solar system when the grid is down. Can someone explain to me why the F-150 can't just act exactly as a powerwall does during a system blackout, in order to continue to generate power from our solar?

Thanks for your time. And thanks especially to the guys who have posted pics/diagrams and contact info for Delta. Immensely helpful.

Hi, a few comments -

1) I think the issue is that the Ford charger has to be fed from grid and if it loses power so does the charger. So you can't have it hooked into the panel that you backup with the HIS. Sunrun doesn't do whole home backup due to the 9600watt (40Ax240) capability. You would choose the critical circuits to be powered. A long as your sub panel goes to the main panel that is disconnected when power is down I think that is fine. The HIS would feed a critical loads sub panel.

2) I believe there are few extra wires for communication and backup power from the inverter. See schematic below - There is one cat 6 cable (I presume they want it shielded so reason not just cat 5) that goes from FCSP to BDI inverter. There is also 2 DC 14AWG wires for backup power to the FCSP. The DC 8AWG wires you mention are the 400V from the Lightning battery that are fed though the FCSP.

3) There is probably no issue doing what you say but the backup panel connected from the HIS would be separate system than the Enphase solar system. Right now the HIS and Enphase do not communicate. There is some firmware enhancements that Enphase is working on to somehow integrated the two but no details yet. Something I learned recently is that the Enphase System Controller 2 has a 16Kw limit for PV which has been a problem for me since my system being designed is 24kW. I've been going back and forth with enphase on this and no solution yet.

Just as another idea, the HIS perhaps could be considered an e-generator and then could work directly with ENphase via the generator input on System Controller 2. This generator type is not supported yet though. I'm working on that approach as it is most straightforward and the power would be additive to the solar due to the Enphase micro-grid capability.

4) A few issues here. First your lightning may not be home and there is no battery. Second, almost all solar systems turn off the solar if there is a grid failure. The exception is systems with battery which disconnect the grid from the main and then form their own microgrid. Enphase can be run with no battery on the IQ8 microinverters as they are grid forming - Sunlight backup. Of course if there is cloud cover the capacity drops and likewise if there is no sun there is no backup. You are correct that Sunrun could consider the EV a backup battery but they do not, there is a separate input for extra batteries that are hardwired all the time on the BDI inverter. I would guess their approach is because there is no guarantee the vehicle is connected.

There will be at least 2 other solutions on market 1Q23 that are less expensive - e.g. Emporia V2X and probably one from Enphase's Cricket acquisition. These are mentioned in some of the previous threads. As some others have mentioned the FCSP and HIS are custom tightly integrated Ford solutions and if needs vary over time could be an issue for some. Right now I plan to keep our lightning for a very long time so that does not concern me.

 

[BIC]

Some have mentioned the HIS will only work with the Lightening. Think I saw on the AE Express HIS website (maybe elsewhere), it is compatible with any EV (Tesla needs an adapter). The only limitation would be vehicle having the V2H capability, which some EV manufacturers are not keen on.

 

[Joneii]

I am trying a more flexible, although less permanent solution to the backup power issue.
I already have 20kW of solar and two EcoFlow Delta Pros with an extra battery. My solar inverters (4 of them) are the SMA’s with the secure power outlets. This means I have access to four 20A household type outlets that provide power even if the grid is down as long as the sun is shining. One is in my kitchen, one is in my basement and two are in my garage.
The kitchen outlet charges mobile devices, the basement outlet charges the Delta Pros, and the garage outlets power a chest freezer and provide a bit of charging for the Lightning.
The Deltas are combined with the Dual Voltage Hub to provide 240V 30A power to my house critical load sub panel. During the day they recharge from the solar and also provide power to the critical loads.
My original plan involved using the Lightning in place of my propane backup generator, but the bonded neutral in the vehicle means it doesn’t work with my critical load panel. However, the fast charging speeds of the Delta Pros mean that I can simply use the truck to charge them if the sun has been missing for a while, and they power the critical load panel.
This setup has the added benefit of being functional if the truck isn’t home (or I get a different vehicle), and the Delta Pros are reasonably portable. So, instead of just sitting in the basement waiting for a power outage, I use them throughout the year for powering my camper, or supplying power to remote areas of my farm when needed. Also when towing the camper it is nice to know that I have a small reserve power supply in the form of the Deltas should I have to push the range between DCFC locations on a road trip.

 

[adoublee]

I am trying a more flexible, although less permanent solution to the backup power issue.
I already have 20kW of solar and two EcoFlow Delta Pros with an extra battery. My solar inverters (4 of them) are the SMA’s with the secure power outlets. This means I have access to four 20A household type outlets that provide power even if the grid is down as long as the sun is shining. One is in my kitchen, one is in my basement and two are in my garage.
The kitchen outlet charges mobile devices, the basement outlet charges the Delta Pros, and the garage outlets power a chest freezer and provide a bit of charging for the Lightning.
The Deltas are combined with the Dual Voltage Hub to provide 240V 30A power to my house critical load sub panel. During the day they recharge from the solar and also provide power to the critical loads.
My original plan involved using the Lightning in place of my propane backup generator, but the bonded neutral in the vehicle means it doesn’t work with my critical load panel. However, the fast charging speeds of the Delta Pros mean that I can simply use the truck to charge them if the sun has been missing for a while, and they power the critical load panel.
This setup has the added benefit of being functional if the truck isn’t home (or I get a different vehicle), and the Delta Pros are reasonably portable. So, instead of just sitting in the basement waiting for a power outage, I use them throughout the year for powering my camper, or supplying power to remote areas of my farm when needed. Also when towing the camper it is nice to know that I have a small reserve power supply in the form of the Deltas should I have to push the range between DCFC locations on a road trip.

This sounds like a lot of losses in DC/AC/DC/AC conversions when efficiency might be needed most. The HIS system appears to be designed to be able to send solar not used in real time straight to the Lightning through a DC/DC conversion which should be quite efficient.

But good on you for having operational preparations and sharing your experiences.

 

[Joneii]

This sounds like a lot of losses in DC/AC/DC/AC conversions when efficiency might be needed most. The HIS system appears to be designed to be able to send solar not used in real time straight to the Lightning through a DC/DC conversion which should be quite efficient.

But good on you for having operational preparations and sharing your experiences.

Yep, it’s no model of efficiency, but it works now and I didn’t need to become an electrical engineer to put it into operation. Plus it has several built in redundancies so that I’m not reliant on just one component of the system which (given all the supply chain issues), could be difficult or impossible to replace in a timely manner.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I am trying a more flexible, although less permanent solution to the backup power issue.
I already have 20kW of solar and two EcoFlow Delta Pros with an extra battery. My solar inverters (4 of them) are the SMA’s with the secure power outlets. This means I have access to four 20A household type outlets that provide power even if the grid is down as long as the sun is shining. One is in my kitchen, one is in my basement and two are in my garage.
The kitchen outlet charges mobile devices, the basement outlet charges the Delta Pros, and the garage outlets power a chest freezer and provide a bit of charging for the Lightning.
The Deltas are combined with the Dual Voltage Hub to provide 240V 30A power to my house critical load sub panel. During the day they recharge from the solar and also provide power to the critical loads.
My original plan involved using the Lightning in place of my propane backup generator, but the bonded neutral in the vehicle means it doesn’t work with my critical load panel. However, the fast charging speeds of the Delta Pros mean that I can simply use the truck to charge them if the sun has been missing for a while, and they power the critical load panel.
This setup has the added benefit of being functional if the truck isn’t home (or I get a different vehicle), and the Delta Pros are reasonably portable. So, instead of just sitting in the basement waiting for a power outage, I use them throughout the year for powering my camper, or supplying power to remote areas of my farm when needed. Also when towing the camper it is nice to know that I have a small reserve power supply in the form of the Deltas should I have to push the range between DCFC locations on a road trip.

Nice, I have two EcoFlow Delta Pro's each with an extra battery, just took them out of summer storage, they are my primary failover for the oil fired steam boiler and the refrigerator, 3-4 days continuous service with no PV charging as of yet.....

I am probably going to us the Lightning PPOB to replenish the DP's in a pinch.

 

[rmjames007]

There is an ethernet port on the E4_BDI. It seems like there is modbus TCP communication with the unit. Does anyone have any documentation on configuring this or register points?

 

[PV2EV]

3. If the HIS BDI supports it, you might want to add shading optimizers for the PV running to it, assuming you have trees nearby.

 

[yed19]

Well, I got this far.
🥱

@Wombat, We are at this step as well. Is there an activation needed from Ford/SunRun/Delta? Did you ever get through this step?

 

[PiMatrix]

Hi, we've posted many documents on this thread earlier but there may be a few new documents on the link below which might be helpful in additional help setup section. The page is meant for installers so maybe what you need is in there.

https://sites.google.com/sunrun.com/sop/sops/ev-chargers/ford-ev-charger

 

[yed19]

Hi, we've posted many documents on this thread earlier but there may be a few new documents on the link below which might be helpful in additional help setup section. The page is meant for installers so maybe what you need is in there.

https://sites.google.com/sunrun.com/sop/sops/ev-chargers/ford-ev-charger

Yeah, here’s the issue. Electrician has followed this and things just are not exactly working. I can get the truck to charge. I can add the station to my account. I can even add the HIS to the truck as an enabled Intelligent backup. The issue comes with the Fordpass app and trying to enable the intelligent backup there. Anyone get through that step?

 

[Wombat]

@Wombat, We are at this step as well. Is there an activation needed from Ford/SunRun/Delta? Did you ever get through this step?

It’s still on the back burner, I suspect Sun run or the power company needs to activate something.

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