Electric vehicle charger input to inverter

Question

I am based in the UK. I have an electric vehicle charger:

• Built-in protective earth neutral (PEN) fault device
• Dynamic load balancing
• Power output / max current: 7.4kW / 32A
• Nominal supply: 230 V AC, 50/60 HZ
• Protection: RCD Type A with 6 mA DC

I would like to know if it is possible to power my house battery from it, and what would be needed to do so. I have a solar system with a SOFAR 5KTLM-G2 single phase inverter:

AC attributes:

• Max power:5000W
• Max current: 22.8A
• Single Phase

DC attributes:

• Number of MPPT: 2
• V range of MPPT: 90 - 580V
• Max power: 6650W
• Max current: 11A
• Max voltage: 600V
• Start up voltage: 120V

I also have a Solax 5.8kWh battery:

• Nominal voltage: 115.2V
• Operating voltage: 100 - 131V
• Battery type: Li-ion (LFP)
• Total capacity: 5.8kWh
• Faradic charge efficiency: 99%
• Battery roundtrip efficiency: 95%
• System to inverter: CAN2.0
• Battery to battery/BMS: RS485

From this, my basic understanding is that I could get a Type 2 EV charging socket like the one below and run it into the inverter. There would be a 5m cable run between the two.

Obviously the EV charger is too powerful for the inverter, but presumably there is a way around this. It's not something I'm going to do all by myself, obviously.

Answer 1

As Harper said, av EV "charger" is just wires, a plug to insert into the car, and a relay to power the plug if it detects car at the end of the plug. That's all.

Your solar inverter is a grid-tied model, not a hybrid. It's not compatible with a battery, it can't produce power in a blackout, and it can't be used if not connected to the grid.

So you have three things (EVSE, battery, inverter) that are not designed to work together.

If you want to charge your car with "free" excess solar electricity during the day, then you need a power router, and an EVSE that supports it. There are various ways to do this, it depends on how the components can talk to each other. For example some EVSE's will query the inverter via modbus, others will just measure the total power used by the house. Basically, if the whole house (solar inverter included) is exporting power to the grid because there's a lot of sun, an EVSE that supports this can use this "wasted" excess power to charge the car.

If you want to do something with your battery, then you need an inverter that supports this battery. This can either be a hybrid inverter to replace your Sofar, or a separate AC-coupled storage inverter. It's a high voltage battery, so you should be very careful in selecting the inverter, because they tend to be compatible with a very short list of battery models and brands. Some of these combinations (notably hybrid) tend to work in blackouts, others don't and just allow timeshifting.

Answer 2

You just called that thing an EV charger, which means the project is already off the rails.

That thing is an EVSE. It is nothing but a gateway. It simply connects normal 240V AC to the automobile. It also detects certain faults in the AC power supply, and tells the EV how much current is safe to draw from the connection. The connection from utility to car is nothing but wires. Really.

The charger is onboard the car.

So, you see you don't need the EVSE at all... your missing ingredient is a battery charger appropriate to your battery pack.