We’ve had a “ready by” mode on our todo list for some time, it’s been held up by some dependencies (such as storing energy tariffs, also needed for charging cost reporting).
We’ve also not heard many requests for it from users, but it might be one of those features you don’t know you want until you have it.
Here’s how we think it would work:
- Configure your solar data source to enable solar charging
- Enter your energy tariffs so that Charge HQ knows when the cheapest times to charge are
- Create a schedule which shows the level of charge you want and when it should be finished by. The schedule could be set on a per-day basis.
- Charge HQ would then choose when to charge your EV, automatically maximising the use of solar and then topping up from the grid as needed when energy is the cheapest.
We’re keen to hear your thoughts. Would you make use of this feature? Do you think it would make the app easier to configure?
I really like the idea of intent based charging.
Day to day, what % do I need to get to work etc? I’d guess this is a obout 40% for me.
So I want charge HQ to do whatever it needs to reliably charge to 40% by 7am each morning, with a priority on cost and green-ness.
And a ‘trip’ button that tells charge HQ that I need 100% by 5am the next day, or some specific day in the near future. Again ChargeHQ should do what it takes to get this done.
If these goals are being met then chargehq can go to 90% if the power is either from my roof or from the grid at a very cheap rate.
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I’d appreciate this feature. I’m one of those people that are looking to maximise battery health by not having it sit idle at 100% SOC any longer than necessary.
This feature would be great, especially for those that are trying to run the car fully on solar as much possible but without having the battery sit at high levels of charge (eg. 80% or 100%) when this is not required. For example, I would usually have the SoC around 50-60% Mon-Thu and around 70-80% in preperation for the weekend, and manually adjust levels to charge on solar to achieve this.
Some kind of intelligence would be even better if its able to take into account weather predictions which will result in reduced solar generation and scheduled trips where the car will be unplugged.
Would this feature be compatible with Amber’s dynamic pricing. Ideally if it could use the pricing forecast, that would be amazing.
Currently if we plug in at 8am after the school drop off, the car gets topped up to 100% often by 10:30am (using solar excess).
This is sub-optimal, since this is generally the highest feed-in price of the morning, and thus the opportunity cost is the lost feed-in price.
Normally by 11am or 12pm, the price is much lower, but since the car is already charged then, we are exporting at near zero price, or curtailing.
My Fronius Wattpilot has a “next trip” mode which is based on kWh, not SoC (which it does not appear to be able to access). You give it a target time, a kWh amount, and it works out when to start charging by working backwards from your target. It takes into account any surplus solar it manages to collect and achieves the balance off the grid.
So intent-based charging is a great idea - but maybe support both SoC and kWh as a way to express the intent to cover all capabilites?
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Interesting idea, definitely solves the problem of a scheduled charge continuing to charge the battery beyond what is needed each day. We’ll try and include this.
