[KElkhorn]

I have seen a few threads related to this, but thought I'd share my experience to date, as I don't know that I've seen anyone else post their process.
I am not an electrician, but I am an engineer heavily involved in building automation and control systems.

Like many of you, I was intrigued by the possibility of powering my house in an extended power outage. I have also been trying to make myself pull the trigger on solar for several years. When the inverter specs were released, and I saw that the BDI had that capability for PV and a separate battery backup, I jumped to order, could kill a few birds with one stone. I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have, and jumped on AEE Express and ordered my kit.

While waiting for it to arrive, I did some more reading, and upon arrival I was disappointed to find out it was in fact the E4_BDI and not the E10_BDI. Based on my historical usage, I should have installed a 5-6 kW array, but I know my usage will go up with the truck, so I figured i'd go for 10 kW, which also happens to be the most i could fit on my 700 SF south facing roof. I was able to work around the AEE site and order a second kit, this time with the 10 kW inverter (they have since changed this set-up, I believe they all show up immediately now on his.aeesolar.

This all took me several months to put together. In the meantime, I had to design my eventual system, and then submit to the utility for approval.

I took my existing 200 Amp service, and replaced the meter base with a "solar ready" meter base, which essentially just means the bus is rated for 225 Amps instead of 200. I then fed a new 200A sub panel from this meter base to feed the new charge station pro, and ran my existing house service through the WHB/MID, into a new 200A sub panel where I tied in the solar, and then to the existing feeder to the house. This was all drug out longer than it needed to based on material availability, and me doing much of the install myself when I had time on nights/weekends. (I do have several electrician friends, who helped me through some of the critical pieces, but I can run conduit through an attic as good as the rest of them.)

I also installed the 10 kW of PV in the meantime, and tied this in.

Once it came time to power on the system, I turned on the AC and then DC disconnects per the instructions. I was able to get the system connected to my wifi, and update firmware fairly painlessly.

At this point, I was able to communicate with the inverter through the app, see my incoming power usage through the WHB/MID device, and see voltages at my PV system, however there was no current being produced, and I had errors in the system for "Remote Shutdown" and "WHB Emergency Shutdown"

This is where it got interesting. I called Sunrun, who transferred me to a different department, and then to Ford, who transferred me to BEV marketing, and then to BEV engineering, who inadvertently hung up on me. (hoping it was inadvertent.) I also e-mailed Delta, the inverter manufacturer. Delta was very responsive, I was on the phone with an engineer within a few hours, but he was limited in what he could do based on Sunrun's systems. I then jumped on Sunrun's website, and started a chat. They were fairly quickly able to "register" my system, although they said it would take several weeks to register with Ford. This didn't do anything that day, however I completely shut the system down for a few days, and when I powered it back up no errors and PV was producing.

I am currently waiting for my net meter from my utility to leave the system online, and also waiting for Ford to accept registration to allow for home integration system/charge pro integration.
I can view my system via bluetooth at inverter, but apparently you cannot monitor the system remotely as this is limited to sunrun customers (Sunrun doesn't service my state)

@Ford_Motor_Company, this seems like a long time for registration/BS that I can't monitor this remotely.

Fire away with questions, I'll help if I can, and I'll update as I get things figured out/permanently online.

 

[ChasingCoral]

That sounds awesome! No questions other than I would love to see some pictures to go along with this.

Hope you get connected through Ford soon.

 

[KElkhorn]

Haven't taken photos at inverter/CSP yet, but lots of conduit on outside of my house now.

New Meter base

WHB/Rapid Shutdown/New panel to tie in HIS and feed existing house feeder

New 200 A panel that feeds CSP, and 29 345 Mission Solar MSE345SX5t modules mounted and wired. Threw in a 14-50 RV plug outside while I was at it.

 

[larry.thompson]

This is great info, appreciate you paving the way for the rest of us.
I got my inverter, transfer switch and battery sitting in the garage, waiting for the truck. I wanted to install it in advance, but Sunrun won’t send me the charger unless they do the install, or the vehicle is marked as sold.
So I guess I will wait until I have everything. Vehicle was scheduled for production 12/19, so hoping it’s right around the corner.

 

[fhteagle]

Good write up, thanks for sharing.

Sounds like a lot of hoops to jump through though. Some necessary, some embarrassingly pointless OEM lock in sounding ones.

Think I'll be sticking to my plan of having a Sol-Ark at the center of my system, not the Ford / Sunrun branded stuff.

 

[KElkhorn]

I don't know that the hoops are as bad as not having any guidance on how to get through them. If I knew ahead of time I needed sunrun to register, I would have temp powered the BDI to get it registered, which would have been fairly easy.

They are using the standard for BDI's, so in theory multiple vehicles should be able to work with multiple hardware vendors, assuming things loosen up a bit as competition increases.

 

[Fryballin]

I took my existing 200 Amp service, and replaced the meter base with a "solar ready" meter base, which essentially just means the bus is rated for 225 Amps instead of 200. I then fed a new 200A sub panel from this meter base to feed the new charge station pro, and ran my existing house service through the WHB/MID, into a new 200A sub panel where I tied in the solar, and then to the existing feeder to the house.

Were you able to avoid re-wiring all your house circuits to a “critical loads panel” by doing this or did you still have to move the circuits you wanted “backed up” during outages to a new loads panel?

 

[KElkhorn]

Yes, I have a gas boiler, gas range, and gas dryer, so no real benefit to a separate critical loads panel. This kept me from doing surgery on my existing panel

 

[KElkhorn]

I had a little time to experiment a bit more today.
I am allowed to run the system to test while waiting on my net meter. So I fired everything up this afternoon. Solar was overproducing what house was using. I killed my main breaker, and house didn't miss a beat, BDI continued running house on solar power only.

I tried again a little later with less sun and truck plugged in. power went down, truck tried to "automatically" change over, which took several minutes. After about a dozen tries, when I gained power and then apparently overdrew, truck kicked an error (didn't tell me what error was). I do wonder if I shut down all of the individual breakers, got transferred over, and then turned things on one at a time if it would have worked. Hard to see anything without it being active in FordPass.

 

[Fryballin]

I had a little time to experiment a bit more today.
I am allowed to run the system to test while waiting on my net meter. So I fired everything up this afternoon. Solar was overproducing what house was using. I killed my main breaker, and house didn't miss a beat, BDI continued running house on solar power only.

I tried again a little later with less sun and truck plugged in. power went down, truck tried to "automatically" change over, which took several minutes. After about a dozen tries, when I gained power and then apparently overdrew, truck kicked an error (didn't tell me what error was). I do wonder if I shut down all of the individual breakers, got transferred over, and then turned things on one at a time if it would have worked. Hard to see anything without it being active in FordPass.

I would assume there’s only so much load the truck can supply at once, 9.6 kw but not sure how many amps. Good to know that if solar is producing enough, no drain is placed on the truck.

 

[R.I.P.]

I would assume there’s only so much load the truck can supply at once, 9.6 kw but not sure how many amps. Good to know that if solar is producing enough, no drain is placed on the truck.

Well, 9.6 KW of household current is 40 amps (9600/240=40).

That is not very much.

 

[KElkhorn]

Well, 9.6 KW of household current is 40 amps (9600/240=40).

That is not very much.

That's a lot!

My "live" usage prior to killing power was about 700 watts, it would spike to about 1500 as it was trying to switch to truck.

My typical monthly usage is around 500-600 kWh, or at least it was before the truck. That's about 20 kWh per day, or 1.66 kW for 12/hrs per day assuming it's off the other 12 (it's not). 9.6 kW should cover that easily.

My only real big users are microwave (1200 watts), a 1/2 HP well pump on a variable drive, some heat trace on my gutters, blow dryers, coffee maker, etc, and now my EVSE (Which is not fed from back-up). Fridge has inverters, freezer is energy star, and dishwasher is energy star, so while those are definitely power users, the inrush/start-up is minimized.
I have a gas fired boiler/radiant floor heat with a wood fireplace as back-up, so not a ton of electric use there either.

This equation is quite a bit different for those of you with heat pumps, electric range, electric dryer, etc.

 

[R.I.P.]

That's a lot!

My "live" usage prior to killing power was about 700 watts, it would spike to about 1500 as it was trying to switch to truck.

My typical monthly usage is around 500-600 kWh, or at least it was before the truck. That's about 20 kWh per day, or 1.66 kW for 12/hrs per day assuming it's off the other 12 (it's not). 9.6 kW should cover that easily.

My only real big users are microwave (1200 watts), a 1/2 HP well pump on a variable drive, some heat trace on my gutters, blow dryers, coffee maker, etc, and now my EVSE (Which is not fed from back-up). Fridge has inverters, freezer is energy star, and dishwasher is energy star, so while those are definitely power users, the inrush/start-up is minimized.
I have a gas fired boiler/radiant floor heat with a wood fireplace as back-up, so not a ton of electric use there either.

This equation is quite a bit different for those of you with heat pumps, electric range, electric dryer, etc.

I will rephrase. It is not a lot for most homes. Still, it should be plenty for backup purposes, as long as you don't turn on any high draw appliances such as stoves and dryers. 😎

 

[Fryballin]

I had a little time to experiment a bit more today.
I am allowed to run the system to test while waiting on my net meter. So I fired everything up this afternoon. Solar was overproducing what house was using. I killed my main breaker, and house didn't miss a beat, BDI continued running house on solar power only.

I tried again a little later with less sun and truck plugged in. power went down, truck tried to "automatically" change over, which took several minutes. After about a dozen tries, when I gained power and then apparently overdrew, truck kicked an error (didn't tell me what error was). I do wonder if I shut down all of the individual breakers, got transferred over, and then turned things on one at a time if it would have worked. Hard to see anything without it being active in FordPass.

Can you confirm that the solar array can only provide power to the back up loads during an outage if the truck is plugged in? I am assuming this is the only way the transfer switch is activated but would be really awesome if this was not a requirement during day time hours, then the solar array could still feed power to the critical loads even when the truck was away from home. Would also allow the truck to charge off solar with a plug wired into the loads panel.

 

[KElkhorn]

I can try at some point, but given that the truck hadn't switched into "intelligent back-up mode" yet, and that I then had trouble when it did, I suspect that it would work. I'm also hopeful that the solar DC charges the truck during daylight hours, making the plug off the loads panel unecessary.
I'm a bit hesitant to run much of this very long until my net meter gets installed, I technically am allowed "up to two hours" to have system connected for testing purposes until that goes in, I don't think they'd notice but i hate to push my luck too much.

 

[Fryballin]

I can try at some point, but given that the truck hadn't switched into "intelligent back-up mode" yet, and that I then had trouble when it did, I suspect that it would work. I'm also hopeful that the solar DC charges the truck during daylight hours, making the plug off the loads panel unecessary.
I'm a bit hesitant to run much of this very long until my net meter gets installed, I technically am allowed "up to two hours" to have system connected for testing purposes until that goes in, I don't think they'd notice but i hate to push my luck too much.

No rush, it would just be great to get these few questions confirmed. I'm not expecting that the truck will charge off solar while connected to the HIS (Home Integration System) and the grid down but IF it does, that would be AWESOME. Basically this is the biggest down side of not just installing a micro-inverter solar system versus using the HIS. Great to back up the critical loads with the truck, but kind of silly that there's no way to charge the truck when the grid is down with the HIS.

 

[larry.thompson]

I just saw this live stream video from Nicki at Transport Evolved. Sounds like they are having major problems with their HIS system install also. Says Sunrun and Ford are working on solving the problem.

I’m getting the impression they rushed this to market and did not work out all the kinks before selling this to the public. I could be wrong, but I don’t know of anyone successfully installing the HIS system, Sunrun or otherwise, and it working as intended. Does anyone else?

 

[Russr]

Hiya. Great info and attention to detail, thanks!

Have you & your 3rd party electrician dude/dudette accounted for the Bonded Neutral requirements for the Lightning home backup config?

Thanks again!

Russ

 

[KElkhorn]

I haven't seen anything specific on this, but neutral is bonded at main panel, and is not disrupted by any disconnect, so shouldn't be an issue. I had thought that was an issue when using the 240/30 Amp plug in the truck to power a transfer switch, not with the DC feed to the HIS.

 

[ChasingCoral]

I just saw this live stream video from Nicki at Transport Evolved. Sounds like they are having major problems with their HIS system install also. Says Sunrun and Ford are working on solving the problem.

I’m getting the impression they rushed this to market and did not work out all the kinks before selling this to the public. I could be wrong, but I don’t know of anyone successfully installing the HIS system, Sunrun or otherwise, and it working as intended. Does anyone else?

IIRC there are members here who have the SunRun HIS working here. Ditto for Tom Moloughney.