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80A Charge Station Pro

adoublee

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There is an issue that I haven't seen talked about much yet. I'm not an electrician but I believe NEC specifies that you can't feed additional power back into a panel at more than 20% of the rating for the panel. This is because the combined current of all input breakers can't be more than the busbar rating of the box which I believe is typically 120% of the main breaker.
That is for when there are multiple sources of power feeding the panel. If the Lightning source verifies that the grid-isolation devices has isolated that source of power before back feeding - in an AHJ recognized way, it is not an issue. This is part of the reason why the isolation device / "gateway" / ATS is typically going to be a proprietary device with locked-down communications between the two sources.
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rdr854

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Thanks for the clear explanation. i understand we need 100 amp double pole breaker for 80amp charging pro.
I have a couple of questions.
In the basement, I have 200amp main pannel, which is full and contains most of the "important" stuff like AC, water heater, furnace, refrigerator and 100amp subpannel, which has 10 space left.
1. Is it smarter to put that 100amp breaker into the 200 amp main panel or 100amp subpanel for the emergency vehicle to grid situations?
2. Garage to thr panels in the basement is about 50 ft. What size of copper do i have to use? Will 4/3 be enough? 2/3 or 1/3?

Thanks
We are working through a similar issue in trying to make sure that our 200 amp panel can accommodate the 80 amp charger. While it would seem that there should be a lot of space (amperage wise), surprisingly it appears to be very close - given the size of the house. Fortunately, we have gas appliances (including a gas dryer). Unfortunately, we do not have 240 volt service to the upstairs laundry room (which is right next to the garage).

My recommendation would be to consult with your local government building department and an electrician. Many building departments have worksheets to assist the public in estimating their load calculations.
 

happyzippo11

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I have a 200-amp main panel and 100-amp subpanel in the garage. My subpanel is about 75 feet away and is fed by 2-gauge cable, which according to NEC is good to 115 amps. This setup has worked well for me for the past 15 years.

There is an issue that I haven't seen talked about much yet. I'm not an electrician but I believe NEC specifies that you can't feed additional power back into a panel at more than 20% of the rating for the panel. This is because the combined current of all input breakers can't be more than the busbar rating of the box which I believe is typically 120% of the main breaker. That means for a 200-amp panel you can't feed more than 40 amps back into it, and you can't feed more than 20 amps back into a 100-amp panel. 9.6Kw is exactly 40 amps so you could (just barely) meet the requirement by feeding that much power into your main 200-amp panel, but your subpanel would be limited to half of that, or 4.8Kw. I'm guessing you will need to feed the power back into your house through a separate breaker that is limited to the above values in order to satisfy NEC requirements. There are a couple of ways around this limitation, you could reduce the size of the main breaker in the panel or you could backfeed the power through a line-side tap.

Anyway, to answer your questions, 1. I think it is smarter to put the 100-amp breaker for the charging station pro into your main panel and move a couple of smaller breakers to your subpanel to facilitate it. It will cost more and be more work but it won't overload your subpanel. 2. NEC specifies at least 2/3 wire for a 100-amp circuit.
Thank you so much for your kind explanation!!!
 

jefro

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Before I got too far ahead of myself I think I'd discover if in fact you do need the full 80 amps. It may be possible that this charger has a jumper to select different current levels.
There's a little bit more to selecting the proper wire size. The type of cable selected the size of the conduit the location of the conduit and many more may have a deciding factor on choices.
If we find out more how this unit works it may be possible to run an ABT or MBT to the main house. My
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