SPAN - Smart Breakers + EV Charging

[blueice89]

A lot of this granularity and control benefit and savings of power will also depend on the rules of your utility company. Many utilities are switching to non net payment of the solar credit. Ie they pay you less for the solar produced vs what you use. In Arizona they even penalize you by charging you additional fees if you use too many devices simultaneously during peak called (demand billing). Powerwalls for us only drain during peak and we just let it all drain during peak and now the powerwall can refill from grid at night. It seems to be all these solutions of controlling the power are really to just stop battery drain or prevent peak usage. Well if the utility company rules help you support the usage then it’s a good deal. It seems a little strange to me we have to schedule and control usage tho. I bought powerwalls so I could use as much peak power as I wish. I do like this monitoring aspect. I would also be curious to hear how owner of span uses the system and what their thoughts are too.

 

[thecodingart]

Interesting, as SPAN is almost an appeal to technology hobbyists with a high income. I could see using this panel if I could use it as part of a V2H setup, as adding a separate transfer switch to my home would be physically a pain/ugly due to location and construction of my power entry and main breaker panel.

This, or also for individuals who want load balancing on EV chargers because they can’t (for whatever reason) increase the load to their homes. I was in that unfortunate position when I first moved into my home due to Duke Energy..

 

[Electrified]

I have quite a few use cases this aligns with actually.

Benefits of their charger (even better when they have a V2H product) and breaker system:
- Much more granular control of where my solar power routes to. It’s not possible today to tie a car charger to 100% solar input without some special configurations and REALLY going out of your way for the hookup (I’d know because this is what I originally tried to do). The fact that I can prioritize my car charger to be 100% solar driven and have any left overs revert back to somewhere next in the queue is fantastic granular control that simply doesn’t exist today.
- Charger load balancing. Yes I have a 400Amp input, but the ability to limit/load balance chargers is up on my list. My wife will be receiving an EV soon as well and this is a natural progression for me.

Without their charger
- Monitoring general utility usage is something I’ve wanted for a while now. One of their demo’s basically uses historical graphs to predict your fridge is about to go bad due to spikes. This is right up my alley. This is one use case, but electricity has been going up and Tesla’s data barely provides the information I desire to make cognizant decisions about my usage. Whole home usage is great, but there’s a lot of guess work in what’s causing what. The more granular that data is, the better.
- Remote abilities to control my breakers is something I’ve dreamed about for a very long time now. Simply put, I have a lot of DIY projects I’ve done and this, is amazing from a convenience factor.
- Granular control where I can route power to specific areas of my house during a power outage. I love the idea of being able to optionally turn off power draw to things like my pool, other pumps, different rooms, maybe even one of my 2 AC units rather both. I live in Florida and have been without power for a week before during a hurricane, not for me honestly. During any outages today, I can’t really “control” where my power walls send power to. I have to turn off things manually to sort of get that effect. With this I can without manually doing any of that and guessing.

There’s more their content breaks down, but these are my primary reasons. With a tax break that could cut the cost of this product significantly down, this seems worth it at some point to me. I take a bit of pride in my smart home as well, soooo this is a natural investment with one of the backbones of a home. I consider many things in modern homes to be archaic needing innovation.. this is one of them. I’d also like the ability to monitor water usage to this level tbh. Yes there’s leak sensors out there, but I actually want that data because I’m me .

Also, anything I can do to own my utility meter is a huge win.. they offer something to help with that (https://www.solarpowerworldonline.c...r-and-meter-products-within-smart-home-suite/). I hate being at the mercy of a utility company.

My single hesitation is a lack of understanding on my behalf of how well this software works if the company goes out of business. That’s always a bit of a question with proprietary hardware/software now-a-days though.

Thank you for the detailed answer. IMO the directing of your solar power and especially ability to redirect that SP when it is no longer needed at the chargers makes a strong case for the SPAN, as does the ability to control the larger power circuits without the use of relays and contactors.

My strength in electrical systems and construction is on the commercial/industrial side of the business. With that said at my home I have a NG genset that handles the whole house and pool house, if I wanted to save money on the original purchase of the genset I could have gone with a smaller unit with a dedicated loadcenter to energize equipment that needs back up power.
You mentioned granular control of circuits, the issue I see with that is a general ltg/pwr circuit controls several receptacles and switches, for more granular control I would recommend a Lutron RA2 or a Lutron HomeWorks, I have the RA2 at my house since 2017 and it's been flawless, and there is no concern about Lutron going out of business.

 

[thecodingart]

Thank you for the detailed answer. IMO the directing of your solar power and especially ability to redirect that SP when it is no longer needed at the chargers makes a strong case for the SPAN, as does the ability to control the larger power circuits without the use of relays and contactors.

My strength in electrical systems and construction is on the commercial/industrial side of the business. With that said at my home I have a NG genset that handles the whole house and pool house, if I wanted to save money on the original purchase of the genset I could have gone with a smaller unit with a dedicated loadcenter to energize equipment that needs back up power.
You mentioned granular control of circuits, the issue I see with that is a general ltg/pwr circuit controls several receptacles and switches, for more granular control I would recommend a Lutron RA2 or a Lutron HomeWorks, I have the RA2 at my house since 2017 and it's been flawless, and there is no concern about Lutron going out of business.

Are the Lutron products you're mentioning more of a Creston/Control4 alternative for home automation versus circuitry monitoring/control? I've never owned them and have control4 in part of my home.

 

[borski]

Are the Lutron products you're mentioning more of a Creston/Control4 alternative for home automation versus circuitry monitoring/control? I've never owned them and have control4 in part of my home.

Yes. Lutron products don’t generally monitor or control circuits; they control / automate lights, switches, etc.

Aside: I’ve used Sense before to great success, but sadly it no longer became feasible with solar/Powerwalls. With *just* solar, it works great - but with both it’s not fantastic as it can’t differentiate between battery and solar.

 

[blueice89]

See I watched that Span YouTube video now they got me targeted lol. Also seems this guy is sponsored by SPAN which means his opinion might be compromised?

 

[blueice89]

Yes. Lutron products don’t generally monitor or control circuits; they control / automate lights, switches, etc.

Aside: I’ve used Sense before to great success, but sadly it no longer became feasible with solar/Powerwalls. With *just* solar, it works great - but with both it’s not fantastic as it can’t differentiate between battery and solar.

Do you have powerwalls as well?

 

[borski]

Do you have powerwalls as well?

Yup. 22.6kW solar and 4 Powerwalls.

 

[nck]

I looked at Span when I was getting solar. I think they had a monthly subscription for part of their service. I got Solar to get out of monthly subscriptions, not add more. It's a cool product but I'm not going to look at it if I have to pay a monthly or yearly subscription.

 

[borski]

I looked at Span when I was getting solar. I think they had a monthly subscription for part of their service. I got Solar to get out of monthly subscriptions, not add more. It's a cool product but I'm not going to look at it if I have to pay a monthly or yearly subscription.

Wait, really?! I never heard anything about a monthly subscription. That would probably be a deal killer for me, for the same reason.

 

[nck]

Wait, really?! I never heard anything about a monthly subscription. That would probably be a deal killer for me, for the same reason.

This was a year ago so it might have changed. I think some of the smart features on the app required a subscription

 

[nck]

Did some googling around and it looks like they got rid of it. Now it's much more appealing.

 

[thecodingart]

Wait, really?! I never heard anything about a monthly subscription. That would probably be a deal killer for me, for the same reason.

This would be a deal breaker for me as well. I haven’t heard that mentioned anywhere yet.

 

[Electrified]

Are the Lutron products you're mentioning more of a Creston/Control4 alternative for home automation versus circuitry monitoring/control? I've never owned them and have control4 in part of my home.

Lutron has products that would compete with both Creston and Control 4. Lutron has products that range from simple dimmers to wireless control for a theater stage.

Yes. Lutron products don’t generally monitor or control circuits; they control / automate lights, switches, etc.

Aside: I’ve used Sense before to great success, but sadly it no longer became feasible with solar/Powerwalls. With *just* solar, it works great - but with both it’s not fantastic as it can’t differentiate between battery and solar.

Lutron has a wide array products that include lighting, daylight harvesting, shade control, etc., and tying in with BAS's in small commercial buildings up to large hi rises.

Lutron Commercial Systems Building Integration

Lutron lighting controls can seamlessly and reliably integrate with many different building systems, including building management systems (BMS), security systems, and maintenance systems.

www.lutron.com

What would be the end result of the product being of able to differentiate battery and solar?

 

[borski]

Lutron has a wide array products that include lighting, daylight harvesting, shade control, etc., and tying in with BAS's in small commercial buildings up to large hi rises.

Sure, agreed. But what Lutron does not do is monitor energy usage or control specific circuits or breakers, which is the point of Span.

Sense does the monitoring and works very well for that, but does not differentiate between solar and battery, thus making the analysis of energy usage difficult, since battery use is seen as “negative solar” and it gets awkward to parse. As soon as they release a version with 3 CTs instead of 2 CTs, I’m buying it.