R2 V2L Charging Adapter "Field Outlet" trademarked by Rivian

[tpepper]

OK. So to be clear, you have your Sigenergy DCFC connected to a 200 Amp circuit from your main breaker box that is connected to the grid? So if you want to charge at 25 kW, it can pull 105 Amps (ish) from the grid if necessary?

In order for me to make this system work at full potential, I would need to run a 125 Amp circuit from my 200 Amp breaker box to the Sigenergy installation location. I would want it close to my truck, because I am sure the charging cable is not very long.

I park on the far side of the garage (the opposite side from the breaker box), and really I am not sure how I could fit it in. I have some ideas, but it would be a pretty major retrofit in my garage the way it is now.

Yes and no. It could pull that many amps from the grid. But it can't invert that and deliver it to the car. PV DC and house battery DC plus grid AC inverted to DC do get up to the 25kW charge power.

The cord is supposedly available in 5, 7.5 and 10m lengths. I believe mine is the 5m and it is just sufficient to cover a two-car garage / driveway.

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[tpepper]

I understood you to say that the EV had to be set to 100% SOC. If true, the loop described really doesn't work at all. I'm likely still missing something obvious!

Maybe we're missing each other on the fact that I do manually move the Rivian target SOC up and down in the Rivian app if/when needed relative to actual SOC and the SigEnergy side's schedule and automations and my desired energy flows? Those mobile app clicks are automatable, but I haven't been bothered to do so. It is a kludge to work around the lack of a Rivian user interface for more automatically/actively routing power in a particular way.

I do that a few times a month. I also did it a few times a month before I had this setup. It's a normal part of having an EV, doing local trips and doing long distance trips, wanting to not reduce battery life too much and not wanting to never use 20-25% of the battery. I just get additional benefits from doing it now.

Relative to tying into the house and resilience, I don't see this as a lot different than the behaviors that are otherwise common with a backup like turning the home HVAC up/down to conserve, physically turning off circuits to not over draw instantaneous power, or working to extend the available energy in a long outage. A human in the loop tends to be required today. But a lot is also automateable.

 

[Ralph]

Maybe we're missing each other on the fact that I do manually move the Rivian target SOC up and down in the Rivian app if/when needed relative to actual SOC and the SigEnergy side's schedule and automations and my desired energy flows? Those mobile app clicks are automatable, but I haven't been bothered to do so. It is a kludge to work around the lack of a Rivian user interface for more automatically/actively routing power in a particular way.

I do that a few times a month. I also did it a few times a month before I had this setup. It's a normal part of having an EV, doing local trips and doing long distance trips, wanting to not reduce battery life too much and not wanting to never use 20-25% of the battery. I just get additional benefits from doing it now.

Relative to tying into the house and resilience, I don't see this as a lot different than the behaviors that are otherwise common with a backup like turning the home HVAC up/down to conserve, physically turning off circuits to not over draw instantaneous power, or working to extend the available energy in a long outage. A human in the loop tends to be required today. But a lot is also automateable.

If Sigenergy are able to determine the SOC, it would seem it could all be automated without anything additional from Rivian such as the interface you mention. Can your system report the Rivian's SOC?

 

[tpepper]

Relative to tying into the house and resilience, I don't see this as a lot different than the behaviors that are otherwise common with a backup like turning the home HVAC up/down to conserve, physically turning off circuits to not over draw instantaneous power, or working to extend the available energy in a long outage. A human in the loop tends to be required today. But a lot is also automateable.

Put another way: My biggest complaint is that SigEnergy doesn't have a high level toggle in their app for simple/complex mode. It has sooooo many settings and options and scheduling and energy flow prioritization that the vast majority of people will never want or rarely need to touch.

I have it set to keep my batteries "ready to go" relative to their LiFEPO and NMC chemistries, to prefer solar when its present, then grid, but use batteries when neither solar or grid is present, prefer the car's battery when no grid versus the house battery (because the car battery is 30x bigger and the house battery is really my last safety net), etc. These seem like normal things to want to me, but aren't the default and wouldn't make sense for everybody. The defaults seem more geared toward somebody wanting and able to make money off time shifting generation and consumption, which I think is how these tend to get marketed. Car as a "backup generator" isn't something most consumers even comprehend is possible today, so YMMV.

 

[tpepper]

If Sigenergy are able to determine the SOC, it would seem it could all be automated without anything additional from Rivian such as the interface you mention. Can your system report the Rivian's SOC?

Yes. Except...maybe the way to think of this is actually that most EVs "have a bug" in that they ignore the presence of a charger if their target SOC is below their current SOC. I don't have the means to sniff the protocol. But it really feels like the car's first order conditional logic is "do I need to charge now...yes/no" and does not proceed with anything unless "yes". That choice is tied by a variable which is set interactively in the car on its screen or in the Rivian app. The situation does not appear to be one of the vehicle and charger having a collaborative discussion regarding what they want to agree to do. Both car and charger have distinct target SOC controls and either can choose to end the session. This is the same on my Bolt and was the same on my Model Y. This is also the same with my Tesla L2 charger/app when it interacts with any of the vehicles I've connected to it. Which I guess means most chargers also "have a bug" if the car's SOC is above the charger's target SOC?

 

[mkhuffman]

Yes and no. It could pull that many amps from the grid. But it can't invert that and deliver it to the car. PV DC and house battery DC plus grid AC inverted to DC do get up to the 25kW charge power.

The cord is supposedly available in 5, 7.5 and 10m lengths. I believe mine is the 5m and it is just sufficient to cover a two-car garage / driveway.

Sorry, one more question. If PV and battery are not used, what is the maximum charging power (grid only charging power)?

 

[tpepper]

Sorry, one more question. If PV and battery are not used, what is the maximum charging power (grid only charging power)?

In my config given an 11.4KW inverter between the grid and car, it is going to be approximately 11.4KW.

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