Anyone managed EV charging from a modest solar/battery setup without spending a fortune?

by ThingamyBob · 1 month ago 94 views 0 replies
ThingamyBob
ThingamyBob
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1 month ago
#8034

Got a bit of an odd one here. I'm running a 400W solar array on the static caravan with a pair of Fogstar 100Ah LiFePO4s (so 200Ah usable) and a Victron MultiPlus-II 24/3000. Mostly handles the caravan fine, but I've also got a small EV parked up and I keep wondering whether I could trickle charge it from the system on sunny days without completely nuking the batteries.

The EV charger I've got is a basic 3-pin granny cable so it draws around 2.3kW — which is obviously already pushing what the MultiPlus can comfortably sustain for hours on end, never mind what the solar's actually pulling in. Has anyone tried throttling back a granny cable somehow, or is that a rabbit hole not worth going down? I've seen mentions of the Wallbox Quasar and some of the smarter EVSE units that can do dynamic load balancing, but they seem eye-wateringly expensive.

Wondering if there's a budget-friendly middle ground — maybe a basic EVSE with an adjustable current setting? Even dropping to 6A would only pull about 1.4kW which feels a lot more manageable. Or am I just dreaming and the battery bank is too small to make this worthwhile even on a good summer day?

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