Charge Anytime, Solar and the Indra App

Morning ​@BobTom,

Thanks for your question - I’ve reached out to one of our Solar experts to get an answer for you - I’ll let you know as soon as they’ve got back to me!

​@BobTom I’ve PM’d you to get some further details - have a read when you can and get back to me.

Cheers 😁

OK Done thanks. I am just wondering why EV (or something similar) does not appear on my Home Screen. I am sure something similar was there in the past.

Just to mention, once you migrate an Indra charger to the Charge Anytime app, it no longer shows up in MyOVO. You’ll need to use the Indra and Charge Anytime apps for that going forwards.

Thanks, that explains it. Also I think the ‘Energy Hub’ disappears online.

Morning ​@BobTom,

I hope you had a good weekend, and I can see ​@Blastoise186 has answered your further questions 😁. Just to let you know I’m still waiting to hear back from our back office team following our chat, and I’ll let you know as soon as I have an update.

Cheers!

Thanks, no hurry take your time.

​@BobTom good morning!

Just to let you know I’ve heard back from our back office, who are speaking to our external Tech team, Kaluza, about your issue. Still awaiting an answer but I just wanted to let you know the ball is rolling on this one.

Cheers,

Ben

Hi all,

Has anyone else has problems with an Indra charger not allowing solar charging since the software was supposedly all updated in May this year.

When I have tried to solar charge my EV it has gone straight to charging from the grid. I phoned Indra about this and eventually go to speak to someone (a challenge in itself) and once I’d deciphered the jargon they basically told me I have too high a voltage coming in to my property and I need to contact my network provider, in my case it’s UK Power Network.

I did this and an engineer came out and told me the voltage coming in to my property is within their acceptable range and that it is the charger’s (Indra’s) software that is the problem not adjusting to this.

I contacted Indra again and they denied any problem with their software. Has anyone else had all this and can anyone advise where I go from here?

Thanks all,

Jasmin

Morning ​@Jasmin10, I hope you’re well.

This sounds really frustrating. Can I just confirm that everything is set up properly in your apps? I’ve asked if our back office team have any suggestions and will let you know if I hear back from them, but it really does sound like these issues fall in line with the May update… It sounds like something Indra should be looking into.

Hi ​@Ben_OVO,

Thanks for your reply. I have managed to get through to Indra again this morning but feel fobbed off yet again. They said they are unable to run the logs on my account currently so cannot comment on the issue but will call me back when they’ve been able to do so. I have a feeling I know already what they are going to say. There seems to be a discrepancy between what UKPN has as their acceptable working range of voltage to properties and what the Indra charger works with.

Are you aware of any other Indra charger users having this problem?

Advice from Indra customer service is to get back in touch with UKPN……..

Morning ​@Jasmin10,

I’ve been looking around the SpeakEV Forum and have found other people having similar sort of issues and also saying that Indra seem to be difficult to squeeze a resolution out of, like in this post:

https://www.speakev.com/threads/indra-problem-with-solar-system.180560/

I’ve found these troubleshooting tips with AI:

An Indra charger may be preventing solar charging due to a high voltage situation, meaning the voltage on your electrical supply is exceeding the acceptable range. This is a safety feature to protect the charger and your vehicle. If the voltage exceeds the limit (253V), the charger will stop charging. 

Here's a breakdown:

1. The Problem: High Voltage

• Indra chargers are designed to stop charging if the incoming voltage exceeds the permitted limit (253V).
• This is a safety measure to prevent damage to the charger and your vehicle.
• Solar PV systems can sometimes contribute to voltage fluctuations, especially on sunny days, potentially causing the voltage to exceed the limit, according to Indra Renewable Technologies. 

2. Troubleshooting Steps

• Check the charger's status:

  If the charger is displaying a red light, it indicates a fault. Power cycle the charger by turning it off at the consumer unit and then back on after a few minutes. 

• Temporarily disable solar:

  Turn off your solar PV system or disable the solar panels to see if the voltage returns to a normal range. 

• Power cycle the charger:

  Turn off the charger at the consumer unit, wait a few minutes, and then turn it back on. This can help reset the voltage readings, according to Indra Renewable Technologies. 

• Contact Indra Support:

  If the issue persists, contact Indra's customer support for further assistance. 

3. Potential Solutions

• Voltage Optimizer:

  If the solar PV system is consistently producing excess voltage, a voltage optimizer might be needed to regulate the voltage, according to Indra Renewable Technologies. 

• Network Provider:

  If the issue is due to the incoming voltage from the grid exceeding the acceptable range, you may need to contact your local Distribution Network Operator (DNO), such as UK Power Networks in the UK, to address the problem, according to the OVO Energy Forum. 

• Indra App Settings:

  Ensure your Indra app settings are configured correctly for solar charging. Check for settings related to microgeneration and ensure the minimum current for solar matching is met (1.4kW or 6A), according to Indra Renewable Technologies. 

• Check for other faults:

  Ensure there are no issues with the charger's connections, wiring, or other components, according to Electricpoint. 

I don’t know whether you’ve already tried any of these….

It looks like ​@Kirstin was having similar issues:

I wonder whether ​@Kirstin may be able to let you know what was done to fix this, although they haven’t been active on the Forum for over a year. By tagging them they should receive an email about this so hopefully they might be able to lend a hand here. I’ve also reached out to our back office as well and I’ll let you know if they get back to me.

If you’re an OVO customer it might also be worth you reaching out to the Charge Anytime team - I know it’s not looking like a Charge Anytime issue, but they might be able to give some advice if they’ve seen this sort of issue before.

Thanks ​@Ben_OVO for taking the time to provide this info. I will take a look and digest it. Currently waiting to hear from UKPN to arrange to have the voltage to my property monitored over a period of time to give me something definite to return to Indra with, who continue to be in complete denial and refusing to own the problem.

If the charger is indeed not charging because of an over-voltage situation but your DNO has said that this is not a problem then this could be because they didn’t measure the voltage at your property  - at the time it occurred. Over voltage most easily occurs on rural distribution systems where the DNO boost the voltage at the substation to allow for the voltage drop to the furthest point. When lightly loaded the voltage is often much higher than average >240V but when heavily loaded it doesn’t drop below the minimum. They do this to stop having to upgrade the distribution system. 

Now that people have started feeding power into that distribution system, at midday, when it is probably lightly loaded a lot of power is feeding back on the same lines and can very easily result in an overvoltage near the far end on what was already a high voltage to begin with.

You can insist that the DNO put monitoring equipment into your house to allow for the fact that overvoltage can occur when they are not monitoring the system. It is highly unlikely that they sent anybody out to do the monitoring. They probably just looked at their substation voltage and decided it’s ok. If they refuse then raise a complaint to make sure that they do this and then keep the complaint unresolved until they conclusively show that the voltage, at your property does not exceed the limits that are set at your property. My guess is that the end result (after much procrastination, stalling and hand wringing) will be that they will take the transformer output down one tap.

Peter

Hi ​@Peter E, thank you for your reply and explanation of the procedure. It’s not that UKPN are refusing to come and monitor the voltage to my property, I’m just still waiting to hear back from the team/department that does this to arrange for them to come and fit the monitor - apparently I have to be here for that even though it is external.

So you think the responsibility to sort it will lie with UKPN? The UKPN engineer that came out initially and did a one off reading said when he has come across this before it’s the software in the charger that needs adjusting but Indra won’t do that without ‘evidence’ of the voltage readings over a period of time, which is what I am waiting for, but it’s been 4 weeks now.

Thankfully I can still charge my EV at night in the usual way, it’s just all this lovely solar charging I’m missing out on.

Thanks again for your input,

Jasmin

The voltage readings are conclusive for one party or another. If over then it's UKPN to resolve. If under you can take their evidence to Indra as they have (must have) the same threshold. It's not possible to say who is at fault here but over voltage on sunny days is becoming an increasing issue. It's for this reason that DNOs restrict properties on weak distribution systems to G98 systems instead of a more powerful (and more useful / profitable) G99 system. Hope that goes well for you.

Peter 

This is certainly a recent issue with the (official) record sunny weather we've had. Here's a post from SpeakEV forum where the DNO accepted responsibility for the overvoltage issue.

https://www.speakev.com/threads/wallbox-error-sorted.192823/

Peter 

[Well out of my comfort zone here ...] 

I rather thought that smart meters had ‘Power Quality’ as one of their metrology functions, so any instances of over-voltage or voltage swell would be logged. I can readily access the Power Event log in my own meter, so I would expect both the supplier and the DNO to be able to read it with no need for extra monitoring. Who knows?

I can also see the instantaneous supply voltage and frequency along with all sorts of other stuff.

​@Firedog Don't worry about comfort zone, you're doing ok here.

The DNO can't rule out the possibility of errors in individual meters and its also a case that their metering covers a lot more parameters than a smart meter (if one is indeed fitted at the property under test and it's talking to the outside world) and they will have easy access to recordable information on their own specially calibrated system. The results are therefore definitive in that they can either confidently disown the issue (giving the data to the customer so they that write an angry email to their solar or charge point manufacturer signed ‘Disgusted of <insert village>’ or beg for forgiveness at the feet of the customer and immediately rebuild the distribution system fit for the 20th century.

Remember, the DNO stop at the fuse and as far as they are concerned anything beyond that is a ‘black hole’ into which power disappears and sometimes, annoyingly, comes out (cos it didn't used to do that when they put the distribution system in back in the day and it mucks everything up).

Peter

Thanks for sharing, ​@Peter E! Do you think that’ll be a consideration for the DNO in the future as more and more solar properties come along and the UK enjoys more spells of good weather? Will they need to upgrade transformers to deal with the added output?

​@Chris_OVO The DNOs are coming under an increasing workload as one of their jobs, which they didn't have before, is to unloop customers when they request an EVSE or an ASHP. Consequently they are having to deal with a large number of requests from members of the public which they didn't have contact before except in the rare case of a supply fault to single house. I think they are just getting used to that. They are also having to deal with granting G98 and G99 import/export licences. I think this has been a real shock to their system.

In my own attempt to get and EVSE/ get unlooped through OVO in 2021 the DNO never actually got round to contacting me despite frequent prompting from OVO and even direct contact from myself. In the end I just chose to charge at a lower power (you can go to 3.68kW before having to inform them) and avoid paying for an expensive EVSE at the same time. 3.5kW is perfectly adequate for 11,000 miles a year so I'm glad the DNO didn't jump at first asking.

Peter