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These features are in a beta testing phase, so they are not yet available to everyone. More information can be found here.
The “Charging on Sun” charging profile considers when the home's solar panels are feeding power back. At that time, the charge point will supply power to the car.
This has 2 purposes:
1. Preventing feed-in to the grid (i.e., if your solar panels are generating more than your home consumes, your car will try to charge as hard as possible).
2. Minimize the use of energy from the grid.
Here the choice is: use nothing at all from the grid, or use what you do want to use to charge your car to your desired charging rate.
You can set the following:
- Turn this mode on or off.
- Specify within what times of day you want to use this mode.
- Specify the minimum amount you do want to draw from the grid (because you always want to charge the car a little).
For successful solar charging, a number of details must be entered:
- 'Minimum kWh'.
- Start time
- End time
The “Start Time” and “End Time” indicate when the profile should take effect. These times should roughly correspond to the times the sun falls on the solar panels. This will vary from household to household due to the location of the panels.
The “Minimum kWh” indicates the speed at which you want to charge when there is no sun available. The charge point will not go slower than this speed, but possibly faster if the sun is shining in full. We recommend filling in at least 6 kWh or 0 if you do not want to use electricity from the grid at all.
CAUTION! When charging on the sun, power may still be drawn from the grid to maintain a relatively constant charging rate. For the life of an electric car's batteries, it is important not to have too many fluctuations in charging speed.
A cloud in front of the sun would already result in two changes. Once slower, once faster. The charging point will compensate for this, if necessary, with power from the grid.
Electric cars require a very large amount of power to charge. In addition, there is a minimum amount of power available before a car starts charging. Many households only have just enough panels to meet this minimum requirement. Also in cases like this, the system will supplement the solar power with power from the grid.