In reading the thread it looks like on/off of circuits has worked sporadically via HA. Can anyone with this integration working confirm you are able to control circuits within HA and it’s working now? This is key to my purchase decision.
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Controlling circuits on/off from HA works for me as part of an automation. I also have a button in the dashboard to manually do this as well.
Edit - my HA automation ran in the last 24hrs, ie., y’ day night the AC circuit was turned off until this afternoon when it got turned back ON. So, it worked so far.
Has anyone come across SPAN’s power consumption? It is not mentioned in the performance specification:
I see a difference of up to 100-500+ watts - varies with time - between the Tesla Gateway Load Power and the “current power” (from SPAN as reported via HA). In my setup, the gateway’s load power measures both the home and any power draw by the SPAN panel.
With the Powerwall Integration, the SPAN app’s Flow tab shows the measurements from Tesla Gateway Meters but not the “current power” that was available previously. However, I can check by adding up the usage in the circuits tab within the SPAN app.
Thanks.
[edit: I have asked span support]
[edit-2: span support said the internal electronics might consume only a few watts. So, maybe the Tesla gateway/Powerwalls electronics consumes power]
Thank you for confirming. My idea is my inverters , Sol Ark, will integrate into HA and when the grid goes down, I will setup an action to shed circuits in Span. Do you see any issues with this approach? I’m trying to get around the battery support limitation of Span.
I don’t know about Sol Ark integration with HA. Your plan should work
Good luck with your setup.
I was not sure about reliability if frequent changes to relay state in SPAN. Hence, I got my thermostats connected to my WiFi network with a Redlink Gateway and also did the HA integration with Honeywell Total Connect Comfort (US) - Home Assistant . So, instead of controlling the on/off state of SPAN circuit, I now have the option to control the climate state (off, heat, cool, auto) of the thermostats to limit grid import.
So it’s time to put Span in and I’m now debating if I should even do it. Even with 2 span panels, I’ll still need a sub panel. Does this HA integration work fine with two span panels?
Maybe I just do a single span with all my 240 because the 240s is prob what I’ll want to load shed for my use case. Any suggestions from the community on how to approach? My use case is HA integration with solar/battery not supported by Span, but using HA on the backend to accomplish load shedding.
Yes it does.
I have one Span and 4 sub panels. Does it give as granular of controls as I would like? No. Does it give me most of the controls I would like, ABSOLUTELY. Would I pay to have a second one put in if money was no object, not likely.
In my house most of the critical circuits are in Panel. I have a few that I would like in Panel that are in subs, but there are only 32 slots in Panel so I had to pick and choose. Critical lighting, circuits with fridge/freezer, etc… go in Panel. Others are either manually shed I just drop the whole sub panel. So 7 breakers (14 slots) are 240V and the others are single.
My 4th sub panel isn’t here but in an in-law suite.
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I don’t understand what you mean by this, are you using an unsupported battery system by Span or are you saying that Span doesn’t officially support the HA integration? Is there a specific purpose you would want to set up automations to handle load shedding out of the Span app?
I don’t have multiple Span panels, but have 4 sub panels connected to it along with solar and it all works well together with HA. I know multiple people on this thread don’t have an issue with onboarding and maintaining multiple panels.
I see what you are trying to do, and the answer to this is no. Span is not an automatic load transfer device. I would not attempt to do this without one installed upstream of your main panel.
Load shedding you can automate through HA if you like, but battery management/engagement/service shutoff by code has to be done by an automatic transfer device if you want power to the Span loads. Either that or set up a manual switch setup with panel that would be wired similar to generator backup.
Maybe since you are going with Sol Ark which is designed more as an off-grid setup maybe using smart breakers would be a better solution for you? Something like the Leviton Load Center or similar breakers?
I meant Span had limited integrations with certain batteries to understand when on/off grid. Unfortunately they don’t just have a simple on/off grid mechanism. I will have a ATS as part of the design as well. I’m just trying to determine at this point, 1 or 2 span panels and if 1, does that give me enough control to perform load shedding of items I need to drop when I lose the grid.
I looked at others like Leviton, but I didn’t see anything that could be integrated into HA
I emailed Span and had asked this previously and was told they don’t have this capability? This would solve most of my challenges if it’s the case. I only asked because I was looking at Lumin which does exactly this for load shedding. I was told Span can only detect it when connected to one of their supported batteries.
Span won’t ever say this is part of thier solution because the integration is not officially supported. (it also means they can change how it works / requiring updates to the integration code at any time with zero warning)
Also just food for thought if you integrate HA into your power control solution like that. It (HA) suddenly becomes CRITICAL to your power solution. Are you prepared to then make HA as robust and fault tolerant as necessary to ensure it’s running to do your load shedding
With a battery pack compatible with span I don’t have to worry if HA is up for my load shedding to work. You won’t have that. So your solution will need to be… Robust.
Id urge you to consider this and does that change the numbers. (it would cost me a couple lhousand usd to build a real fault tolerant VM because I’d need two machines, a NAS and a pieces of connectivity kit. - for that cost it changes the economics on battery kits because it’s cheaper and less headache to just get sunrun instead of brand x)
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How then does Span detect grid vs no grid when not installed in a formally supported architecture? It would need some sort of wire upstream to understand if the grid is connected or not? This is how Lumin does it from my investigation.
I’m not worried about the server side and uptime. It’s pretty robust running on Unraid with hourly backups and I have the ability to spin it up on another server if I ever lose it.
I feel stuck at this point. The sure bet is Lumin because I would just put the circuits I want to shed and it would happen automatically, I checked and HA integration isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Leviton Smart Panel looks interesting because I can do everything in a single 64 slot panel. I’m not sure what the WiFi breakers cost, but I know it will be super expensive. No HA integration yet, but maybe they will have it at some point given their relationship with HA. No local API and it would be a manual process going into the app to load shed.
That brings me to Span and this convo. Maybe I need to reconsider what I’m doing for solar/battery. The problem is the build budget and I fear designing something formally supported that also ties into generator will put me way over budget.
I never said formally supported. They have a sensor and controls - as you see there’s a way to add it to the integration. But my point stands it’s not formally supported. Span doesn’t even acknowledge the integration - that was my point.
So you’re building something mission critical using a control that the vendor doesn’t acknowledge.
Doesn’t seem like a good idea.
A brand new SPAN panel is $4500 USD before installation and discount sooooo. I’d spend time and make sure it does everything you want before committing. That other panel will come out somewhat similar I’d bet when comparing total number of slots. It does 60? If bet something around 7-8kusd fully loaded with ground and breakers before installing (thays a big guess but based on current market.) remember smart panels are basically a whole ruggedized pc bolted on a full panel. - They ain’t cheap.
Personally I’d try to have it self contained in the panel. Then hook THAT up to HA. It’s core power. I’ve done IT for almost 30 years. THAT’s long enough to know I don’t have the money or time to build and maintain the three 9’s infrastructure (up 99.9% of the time) I would require for power management. When I’m spending thousands I’m not lifting a finger to help the infrastructure out.
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What is the mechanism that triggers this today? Can you point me where I can find out more about it.
I’ve been quoted $2500 before breakers. Breakers have to be purchased no matter the panel. It’s a new build so installation is already included per my electrician. All your points are valid, appreciate the feedback.
Then you’re getting a hella deal. That’s 2k off the retail price. Although my cost included all the guts. Mine worked out to about 5K per panel *2 panels after fully installed.
Use that cost savings and put it towards compatible batteries.
I don’t understand the question ‘what mechanism triggers this today?’
Specifically these values. How is Span determining them? Is there an upstream connection to the inverter or meter?
“dsmGridState”: “DSM_GRID_UP”, ()
“dsmState”: “DSM_ON_GRID”, (can also be “DSM_ISLANDED”)
“currentRunConfig”: “PANEL_ON_GRID”, (can also be “PANEL_ISLANDED”)>
There’s only one person who frequents the forum who can possibly answer that (he’s in SPAN engineering - you see his comments in the github repo for the integration.
My guess is the grid comes from sensors on the main lug plus configuration to tell them that’s the grid connection tell them if ‘grid is available’
the others are probably a combination of ‘what do I see on circuit x’ + comms traffic over the local network with the supported battery system.
If I’d built it that’s how I’d do it.