I'm looking to get the Span panel as part of a solar panel upgrade and Powerwall installation. Has anyone done anything with this yet? I see an integration built for Home A**istant, but not finding anything here. Thanks!
Someone may have found a way to reverse engineer for the cloud app on HA but there is no official API available from span cloud or local. Span however does have an Alexa Skill. I do see however SPAN is interacting with the ha Community. Perhaps you can pm @Span-colin over there and get him over here for discussions.
Span has a currently unofficial local REST API, that according to this post from a Span product manager, they plan to support at some point of time.
I looked at the unofficial API. The JSON responses are very logical, and seem simple to parse. My knowledge of Groovy is insufficient to write something that is clean, but perhaps someone like @thebearmay would like the challenge?
Looks like it is local too. Only fly in the ointment, so to speak, is the proximity challenge that they are considering/may have implemented according to the forum post. Can’t determine from this what the client segment is used for as it appears that you can read and control the breakers in the panel without it.
They look like they enabled a token now to bypass the proximity challenge of opening and closing the door 3 times.
If that is so, then the token will need to be passed as a header for each call - easy to do, but would be a snall change.
1 Like
Thanks, all for looking into it and digging up the info. @aaiyar - Good info in that post!
@thebearmay - I think this would be a great driver to have for the community since these panels will become more popular, but I haven't landed on the Span panel yet, so please don't spend your time on my behalf!
I’ll hold off then, but should you decide to acquire them let me know and if I have time we can throw something together.
3 Likes
My feeling about the Span panel is that it is a product with short relevancy. With larger batteries and higher load capabilities every year, it isn't as critical that you shut down the heat pump instantly to avoid blowing the battery breaker. I think that automated control of loads when the grid goes down will get more intelligent, like turning the heating temperature down to 60 degrees, or turning off the oven via the appliance's WiFi link, rather than brute force turning off breakers with the Span. I know the pros/cons of the Span may be a little off topic for this forum, but relevant in that it suggests possibilities for more sophisticated home automation in its place.
Good Information!
It's a fair point and we'll likely get there SOME day, but each Powerwall can only handle 30 amps*, so to cover a 200-amp service, you're looking at 6-7 Powerwalls to cover the the full load. So with Span I can put in 2 Powerwalls and adjust loads as needed, saving $40k on all the extra Powerwalls.
*-At least that is what my installer is telling me they can do and I'm still discussing this with them, because Tesla lists the output at 7kW continuous, which is 58A at 120v. 30A is only 2 standard circuits, which doesn't seem right, especially because if I want to power a couple light circuits which only have LEDs, I'm looking at only a few amps for 1 Powerwall. The unfortunate thing is it's about the full capacity of the circuit and not the actual load on the circuit for electrical code regs, and that is where the Span panel comes in allowing me to "overload" the circuits on the Powerwall but limit the actual use to what the Powerwall can handle (i.e. Span will monitor the actual output and cut power to prevent overloading the battery)
1 Like
You just need to cover the actual load, plus some margin, not the breaker size, both on-grid and on batteries. You can have way more than 200A of breakers on your 200A service -- there's no limit in the NEC. I have less than 100W of LEDs on some 15A lighting circuits, so I'd calculate that circuit as a 100W (or maybe not even 100%) load on the battery, not 1800W. I'm going to see a SPAN demo this week, so I will ask them how they calculated their critical loads.
1 Like
Yeah, good point. I also have significantly more than 200 amps of breakers in my panel on a 200-amp service, so the installer must be referring to actual calculated load. Love to hear what impressions you come back with. I am leaning toward going with the SPAN panel so I have flexibility and also the power monitoring feature.
We recently sustained some hail damage to our roof, bumping up our new roof timeline by a few years... But that also means I'm now delving into solar panels/battery storage and would love to pair with SPAN too. I've reached out to SPAN to see if they have any authorized installers in the Chicagoland area to speak with. Should my hopes come to fruition, we'll have a mostly-free new roof within 3-6 months, and then the solar panels/battery backup/SPAN Panel can follow-suit.
As for relevancy, load monitoring in relation to the powerwall is only one gap where SPAN will help in my mind... I think the ability to monitor individual circuits would be valuable (e.g., appliances going bad pulling more electricity than normal; alerts of too many items plugged into one circuit, broaching the amp max/about to trip the breaker). But I also love how their EV charger integrates with it too, and the solar array's production, so you can have the electrical smarts all be controlled/monitored via one means. It seems to me that SPAN bridges the software gap that Tesla, etc. have failed to meet. And other manufacturers (e.g., Eaton) are starting to develop smart electrical panels too. I don't think they're going away anytime soon.
I just chatted with someone from SPAN. He said they're working on a local API, which should open up integration for HA, HE, etc. To me, that's important too, as I wouldn't want them to go under and then I'm stuck with a dumb panel... Though who knows if/when the local API will actually be released and what functionality it'll expose (hopefully all, but...).
I just finalized my design plan with my installer that will include doubling my solar array, adding two powerwalls, and swapping in a span panel. I too like being able to monitor circuits, but I think the biggest advantage will be that I can have whole home backup without necessarily having enough power for the whole house. So if I want to run the range or AC, I can simply turn the desired circuit on in place of others normally set for critical load.
1 Like
I think there is already an unofficial one available based on what I’ve seen, but it will be nice to have one that’s officially supported
Nice! Don't forget to checkout Rewiring America for rebates/incentives for your area...
We have to wait for our roof to be redone (probably 3-6 months) anyway before we can add solar, so I'll probably push the SPAN panel until later this year when the 50% electrification rebate will be in effect.
I have a SPAI.io panel, 10.5kW of Tesla shingles, and 2 PowerWalls. I'm pretty happy with the setup and would love to help with HE integration.
We've had a few power loss events - having virtual load options from SPAN is nice. I also sometimes use SPAN relays to shut circuits off for working on them (I know that SPAN deprecates this usage). Having SPAN (and Tesla) data on a dashboard would be great. I can also see having a dashboard switch to turn on the sauna on the way back from skiing, though one would argue that hacking a switch into the thermostat might be a better option.
How many amps does it draw? I use GE 40 AMP indoor/outdoor Z-wave switches for a couple things. Oh, still on clearance. I might grab a few more. 
