Charge On Solar Australia

[Vostok]

Free charging stations are not that unusual, but mainly because they are there for other reasons that selling electricity.

Free AC charging stations are very common, but free DC charging stations are extremely unusual.

The 120kW EV fast-charger that is free during day-time "solar soak"

This 120kW fast charger is free to use between 9am and 4pm to encourage EV drivers to soak up solar. It's part of a trial of different pricing signals.

thedriven.io

@Jules22 answered your other question.

 

[moa999]

Amber, pretty much anywhere in Australia, I believe there are equivalents in the US, EU as well.

It should be noted that's a household retailer that essentially provides passthrough wholesale pricing with a margin.

And that sort of plan is generally only recommended for those that have batteries as variable electricity can also get very expensive on Summer evenings (above $10/kWh).

Australia has deregulated retail electricity, with the distribution networks being a monopoly.
Most households either have a smart meter required or can get one if they want.

And each household probably has the choice of 50+ energy retailers.
Most offer some combination of
- Flat rate (though this is now restricted and sometimes grandfather in some areas)
- Time of Use (normally a peak, shoulder and off-peak)
Time of Use + demand (similar but with an added component based on highest monthly/quarterly use in a given time period, typically hour)
All would have a daily charge of around $1/day, and then typically a feed in tariff.

The various retailers 'compete' with slightly different rates, daily charges and FIT but for most consumers it's probably a + or - 10% on the total bill.

And then you've got a small number of retailers that offer truly variable plans like the one shown above.

 

[bradtem]

Free AC charging stations are very common, but free DC charging stations are extremely unusual.

The 120kW EV fast-charger that is free during day-time "solar soak"

This 120kW fast charger is free to use between 9am and 4pm to encourage EV drivers to soak up solar. It's part of a trial of different pricing signals.

thedriven.io

@Jules22 answered your other question.

There are more free stations than you would think, but yes, they are relatively rare. This one isn't free, being 18 cents/minute, and since you will not draw the full 120kw, it's a nice but not nearly as great price as free.... Though of course the reality is the bulk of the cost of a fast charge is the hardware, not the electricity.

When the price goes truly negative they won't try to discourage you with a time based fee, though they will charge you if idle. (That will freak people out the idea that it's free when charging, but starts charging you money after you are full, or if you charge at a low rate.)

Surprised it's still "free" from 3-4pm, that's a peak demand time in many places, at least in summer when ACs are on.

 

[GeoQuack]

It's not working for me. I've logged in and out of the app multiple times and even deleted all the data which then required me to re-pair my phone with the car, Powerwall and wall connector.

Any ideas?

App version 4.30.5-2528
Car 2024.2.7
Powerwall gateway 23.44.0
Wall connector 23.44.0

 

[tyrotex]

It's not working for me. I've logged in and out of the app multiple times and even deleted all the data which then required me to re-pair my phone with the car, Powerwall and wall connector.

Any ideas?

App version 4.30.5-2528
Car 2024.2.7
Powerwall gateway 23.44.0
Wall connector 23.44.0

It came good for me after I logged out of the app, shut down the iPhone, restarted the phone and logged back into the app.

Video from Lee on setup and it working

Good explanation, with one exception. You do NOT require a Tesla Wall Connector. I don't have one and it works just fine.

Amber, pretty much anywhere in Australia

Nope! Only in the mainland parts of the NEM. Not in NT or WA (which are not part of the NEM) OR in Tasmania (which is).

I believe there are equivalents in the US, EU as well

In fact, Amber have announced that they are opening in Europe, even though they are not even fully national here.

 

[Quickst]

Even if you generate 10x as much power from your panels, when you charge your car you send less power to the grid, and so the grid now needs to burn more fossil.

When the grid operators keep reducing FiT and even limiting grid export, I don't think I should have any obligation to supply electrons to the grid

 

[Quickst]

Amber, pretty much anywhere in Australia

I don't believe Amber will be better for me - one of the reasons is I don't wish to keep an eye on dynamic pricing and jump in and out with electrical loads. My modelling suggests it's possibly more expensive.

 

[meloccom]

Moderators note:
Changed thread name to Charge On Solar Australia

 

[meloccom]

Moderators note:
45 posts moved from TeslaSoftware Updates Australia thread.

 

[cafz]

Amber, pretty much anywhere in Australia, I believe there are equivalents in the US, EU as well.

At the present time, it's mostly SA and VIC where you'll see significant negative prices on Amber.

The AEMO dashboard shows wholesale market pricing. Solar and wind generation in Australia get "renewable energy certificates" for each unit they generate, which are currently worth about $50/MWh so they'll bid significant capacity down to -$50/MWh.

NEM data dashboard

The NEM's key data points including price and demand, dispatch, and short and medium-term outlooks.

www.aemo.com.au

 

[Jules22]

I don't believe Amber will be better for me - one of the reasons is I don't wish to keep an eye on dynamic pricing and jump in and out with electrical loads. My modelling suggests it's possibly more expensive.

Fair enough, it can be all left up to the automation, I tend to jump in there and try to do better, but I'd be surprised if my meddling actually earned me anything more significant than a few dollars a month, which when they are paying me between $50 and $120 a month is probably a waste of my time.

I'm just finishing editing of a video that goes through the entire process, so if you keep an eye on my channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWPBIRWYn0wa_Py2_xO9CCg/ it should be up in the next hour or two.

 

[dronus]

It came good for me after I logged out of the app, shut down the iPhone, restarted the phone and logged back into the app.

Good explanation, with one exception. You do NOT require a Tesla Wall Connector. I don't have one and it works just fine.

Nope! Only in the mainland parts of the NEM. Not in NT or WA (which are not part of the NEM) OR in Tasmania (which is).

In fact, Amber have announced that they are opening in Europe, even though they are not even fully national here.

I just watched that video too, very good.

Now waiting for the notification from @Jules22 channel

 

[Jules22]

I just watched that video too, very good.

Now waiting for the notification from @Jules22 channel

It should be live now

 

[dronus]

It should be live now

Ohh there it is

 

[Mark Purcell]

Does anyone know the structure to call the CHARGE_ON_SOLAR API endpoint?

tesla-api/ownerapi_endpoints.json at 670596c7348617f9e3b3a97ee335e84227a9b49a · timdorr/tesla-api

🚘 A Ruby gem and unofficial documentation of Tesla's JSON API for the Model S, 3, X, and Y. - timdorr/tesla-api

github.com

 

[bcarp]

Tesla have that wrong. The battery generally has to be charged daily, the car is a larger capacity and can wait.

This is definitely wrong on Tesla’s part. The house battery needs to charge first, since it need to get through the evening peak time. The car can wait and if need be charge overnight. The house battery can’t wait until overnight or we’ll be paying peak hour grid draw in the evening do general house usage.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that it’s impossible to charge to 100% overnight. The sliders just can’t be set like that. So, if you’re going on a long road trip tomorrow or if you’re on a LFP battery that needs 100% once in a while and you’re not home enough to solar charge to 100% (or it’s winter), then you have to turn COS off (& potentially never figure out how to turn it back on again).

 

[tyrotex]

...
The other thing I’ve noticed is that it’s impossible to charge to 100% overnight. The sliders just can’t be set like that. So, if you’re going on a long road trip tomorrow or if you’re on a LFP battery that needs 100% once in a while and you’re not home enough to solar charge to 100% (or it’s winter), then you have to turn COS off (& potentially never figure out how to turn it back on again).

Yesterday, I DID turn off CoS under Schedule/Charge and it was no longer available. So, I could not turn it back on!
However, I got the CoS install option showing again after logging out of the app, restarting the iPhone and logging in to the app again.
It would be good if you could turn it off and on as you wish. Mostly, I don't need it as I use a Zappi which gives me CoS functionality, even up to 100%.
It also seems that the CoS slider can only be set within the range of 30% minimum to a maximum of 10% less than whatever charge limit you have set, e.g. charge limit at 85% restricts CoS slider range from 30% to 75%.

 

[Hairyman]

Argh. Not very good functionality. That behaviour makes a bit of a mess of my planned use case. Might need to wait for a couple of more iterations.

 

[Vostok]

Yeah I won’t be using it yet. Not prioritising PW2 charging is a dealbreaker.

 

[Vostok]

OK, ignore the above post . I turned on Charge on Solar this morning to try it out, but only after my PW2 was full.

• Interesting you can now set a charge limit lower than 50% to charge from “any source” - the minimum is 30%. Previously it was not possible to set a charge limit of less than 50%.
• Scheduled charging (e.g. overnight) will still happen if the car’s SoC is below the threshold set above after “Charge on Solar” has finished for the day. Charging from the grid would stop once the “charge from any source” threshold is reached.
• It seems it is easy to turn Charge on Solar off - tap the 3 dots in the charging section of the App to open up the Charge on Solar settings, and there is a toggle there to turn it off.
• Charging rate goes as low as 1.2 kW (5A single phase) but I have 3 phase, so charging actually goes as low as 1.7A per phase but the current setting slider in the Charging section of the App still shows 5A as the minimum charge rate, even when it has gone below that and is displaying that lower Amp value in the data bar.
• I still don’t want my solar charging my car in priority to the PW2, so I expect I’ll be turning CoS off after it has finished today, and only turn it on again manually when my PW2 is full and the car needs charging. This needs to be fixed.