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Charge Anytime app fails to charge vehicle to set max charge level

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
February 18, 2023
24 replies
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Plugged my Renault Zoe into my home charge point at lunchtime yesterday and left the app to do it’s thing. My app settings are Reached by: 09:00, Charge level: 100%.

There were multiple charging ‘sessions’ but when the charge finished and I unplugged at 09:15 this morning both the car and the app reported the car’s battery level at only 96%.

I’m sure I’ve used the app to charge to 100% previously. What’s going on and is this likely to happen again?

Best answer by Peter E

Updated on 23/01/26 by Ben_OVO

Want to find out more about Charge Anytime? Check out these topics:

There are complications of charging to 100%. 0-99% is straight forward and the time to charge calculation is relatively linear. However, the last one percent is a two stage process. Stage one is the charge time to go from 99% to 100% nominal - the point where the lowest-capacity pair of cells (96 series connection of a pair of cells, 96s2p configuration) reaches its maximum voltage. That takes about three minutes.

After that point the charger in the car drops the power down down to 2kW (you can see this happen on 7 and 22kW chargers) and then selectively brings each pair of cells to the maximum voltage. When the highest capacity pair reach the maximum voltage the cell levelling process terminates and a 100% charge is declared. The time to do the levelling varies according to a number of parameters but the main one is the number of miles since the last 100% charge. The energy required to do this can vary from 3-5kWh every time you do it. The variability of this process is shown on the Renault app as a loss of time to complete the charge whereas it would show a charge completion time before 99%.

Getting back to your issue: Is the app etc capable of recognising that the very last part of the charge can take a lot longer than simply calculating a pro-rata time based on the rate that it is charging up to 99%? Perhaps it gets it right some of the time. Maybe that will be when you have done fewer miles since the last full charge.

Another possibility is that the charge reported by the BMS can drop when the battery temperature drops even though no charge is lost from the battery. I have noticed that I can park a warm car / battery in the evening at say 70% and if it has been very cold overnight it will report only 68% in the morning only for it to report 69% later on in the day when it has warmed up a bit. The BMS does change the available battery capacity according to temperature and it’s not the only car to do it.

There is also the possibility of a malfunction somewhere between the car and Ovo’s servers during the charging process.

I hope that helps

Peter

Blastoise186

Super User

Hmm… If I were to make a guess - and this is only a guess - it’s possible the EV terminated the charge completely on this occasion or used some juice between sessions.

Keep an eye on things and report back

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Peter E

Solved

Super User

Updated on 23/01/26 by Ben_OVO

Want to find out more about Charge Anytime? Check out these topics:

There are complications of charging to 100%. 0-99% is straight forward and the time to charge calculation is relatively linear. However, the last one percent is a two stage process. Stage one is the charge time to go from 99% to 100% nominal - the point where the lowest-capacity pair of cells (96 series connection of a pair of cells, 96s2p configuration) reaches its maximum voltage. That takes about three minutes.

After that point the charger in the car drops the power down down to 2kW (you can see this happen on 7 and 22kW chargers) and then selectively brings each pair of cells to the maximum voltage. When the highest capacity pair reach the maximum voltage the cell levelling process terminates and a 100% charge is declared. The time to do the levelling varies according to a number of parameters but the main one is the number of miles since the last 100% charge. The energy required to do this can vary from 3-5kWh every time you do it. The variability of this process is shown on the Renault app as a loss of time to complete the charge whereas it would show a charge completion time before 99%.

Getting back to your issue: Is the app etc capable of recognising that the very last part of the charge can take a lot longer than simply calculating a pro-rata time based on the rate that it is charging up to 99%? Perhaps it gets it right some of the time. Maybe that will be when you have done fewer miles since the last full charge.

Another possibility is that the charge reported by the BMS can drop when the battery temperature drops even though no charge is lost from the battery. I have noticed that I can park a warm car / battery in the evening at say 70% and if it has been very cold overnight it will report only 68% in the morning only for it to report 69% later on in the day when it has warmed up a bit. The BMS does change the available battery capacity according to temperature and it’s not the only car to do it.

There is also the possibility of a malfunction somewhere between the car and Ovo’s servers during the charging process.

I hope that helps

Peter

Reducing my yearly fossil fuel usage with an EV (-900 litres petrol), A2AHP (-8,700 kWh gas) and Timed Immersion heater (-1,500 kWh gas)

NosmarbAuthor

Rank 4

Thank you both, especially for Peter’s well-reasoned reply.

I’ll monitor for a while and report back.

Nosmarb

Peter E

Super User

One of the reasons for not actively looking to use this Type-of-use charging (apart from the complexity of the whole system) is that I’m not sure if there will be any detriment to the battery if the charging is repeatedly stopped/started during the period when the BMS is carrying out the cell equalisation (aka top levelling) process. ATM I don’t think there is any evidence either way but when I schedule a 100% charge I always make sure its done in one session without the possibility of any outside control interrupting the process.

This also applies to use of the Ohme / Time-of-use tariff where the car is charged during individual slots when the electricity is cheapest. This is probably fine for anything below 99%.

Reducing my yearly fossil fuel usage with an EV (-900 litres petrol), A2AHP (-8,700 kWh gas) and Timed Immersion heater (-1,500 kWh gas)

S

speuk

Rank 2

Only been using Anytime for a few days. First charge was a test charge to add 10% as car was already at 85% soc. This worked perfectly. 2nd charge was to charge to 100% for 07.40. I checked Apps at 06.00 and car was at 97% and charging paused. Anytime had sent a Timer to the car showing 100% for 3 days later? I changed the timer on My Porsche App and the car commenced charging again and got to 100%. The Anytime App showed the correct request all the time. 3rd charge set 85% for 07.40 today and charging stopped at 82% and car had a timer sent by Anytime again for 3 days time. Corrected this and it has started charging again.

NosmarbAuthor

Rank 4

Said I’d repeat my Charge Anytime app charging process and report back (assuming anyone’s interested, of course).

So, the app was set to Min Charge 20%, Max Charge 100% and Ready By 09:00.

The car was plugged into my home charger at 11:00 on 20/2/23. There were several charging sessions, all during that day.

Checked at 09:15 on 21/2/23. Like before, the app reported the battery 96% full. But rather than unplug the car, I left it plugged in. Something I’d not done before was then to examine the car manufacturer’s (Renault) app. This showed an enabled “customised charging schedule” of start at 10:11 and end at 14:01. I have never set a customised schedule in this app.

Indeed, at 10:11 charging recommenced, stopping at around 11:00 with the battery ‘topped up’ to 99% (as reported by the car and both apps). This 1.6 kWh top up charge appears in Charge Anytime’s Savings tab (a discount of 32p).

Further, I see now that the Renault app’s customised charging schedule has been set to start at 07:41 and end at 09:01.

I plan to change nothing now and see (and report) what happens at my next app-controlled charge.

My suspicion is that Kaluza must have set my Renault app’s customised charging schedule wrongly on the previous occasion, but that it is correct now.

Does this make sense?

Nosmarb

Tim_OVO

OVO Forum Legend

Hi there, @Nosmarb @speuk - can you confirm if you’re applying the settings in the charger app or the direct to vehicle (D2V) Charge Anytime app?

The Charge Anytime app is used for D2V control. Where a customer has an eligible vehicle but does not have an eligible charger, they should use the D2V app. Where a customer has an eligible charger (regardless of whether or not their vehicle is eligible), they should use the charger app.

The difference between the two at the moment is that the D2V customer will see savings in their D2V app, whilst the charger customer can see savings in a page called “Your EV” in the My OVO account.

If a customer has an eligible charger and has downloaded the D2V app, they are likely to be setting schedules in multiple apps which will cause a conflict in commands being sent to charge the battery. As a result they may miss their ready by times and will probably not be able to reconcile their Charge Anytime credits.

Let me know if this is applicable in your case.

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6

NosmarbAuthor

Rank 4

Hi Tim,

The only place in which I have set my Ready By time and Min and Max charge levels is the charging schedule page of the Ovo Charge Anytime app. It’s my belief that the My Renault app charging mode details are being set by Kaluza (maybe via the car?). I’m leaving that app severely alone 😊.

My home charger is a BP Chargemaster Premium Homecharge and I see my savings on the Savings page of the Charge Anytime app.

Nosmarb

S

speuk

Rank 2

I just use the Charge Anytime App to schedule "Ready By" and min and Max SOC. Nothing set in the car, Porsche Taycan, but the D2V App seems to push a Profile called "Enode" and a Timer to the car... clearly at some point the Timer gets updated by the D2V App to a Ready By date and time about 3 days out with weird times like 21.30 hours. Not a big issue as getting within 3 % of the requested SOC is good enough.