Do you have Solar Panels & Charge Anytime? We’d love to hear your thoughts

I'd like to become involved, please. I use charge anytime at night and have solar panels. I rarely use it during the day (i.e., if I forgot to connect). I see no issues using both my solar panels and charge anytime because I don't want to charge at peak times or during the day. 

Hi ​@GhostedDoctor 

Thanks for the interest. I’ll PM you shortly.

Hi, I'm an OVO customer who has just purchased an EV and I'm about to sign up to Charge Anytime. I also have a solar panel quote from OVO, so would definitely be interested in being involved in the research if possible? 

Hey ​@rww_100 

Thanks for you interest in this. I’ll send you a private message shortly.

I expressed interest earlier and had a private message.

I have solar panels but no battery and so at night there is no solar energy so, surely the problem could be avoided by having a cheap rate during hours of darkness. 

Separately, a 13 socket is fine for me. I top up at night at 10 amps because of the way garage, which is a little way from my own house, is wired. Could a compatible charger be used, even if it couldn't run at full power because of the wiring. 

It seems I would have been better off if I'd got a charger instead of the solar panels. 

Hi,

I have Hypervolt Home 3 Pro  and Charge Anytime. I am considering installing solar. Can you advise if I can still use Charge Anytime while getting power from the grid and still use solar for powering the rest of my house. I would like to take part in this research if it helps answer my question. Thanks!!

Hi ​@sujohnm ,

Sounds like you DO have a compatible setup for that purpose - the Hypervolt is a supported Charger when using Charge Anytime with Solar.

Hi,

That’s good news, but how would I instruct my home charger to take power off the grid rather than my solar? Thanks!!

You don’t - a Hypervolt Charger will attempt to use Solar by default whenever it’s available and has sufficient capacity spare. In your setup, it’d be in your best interests to allow that to happen while letting Charge Anytime soak up the rest of your EV Charging. The grid will only be used if your solar isn’t generating enough eco-juice to power everything that’s currently running.

And besides, that’s also not how electricity works anyway - you can’t be importing and exporting on the same phase at the exact same time.

Hi, That’s great, last question - what if I have lots of power stored in the house battery and not enough solar power being generated like at night, will the Hypervolt attempt to take power off my house battery or will it take power off the grid. Thanks for the responses, really helps understand how this works!!

It will attempt to use the Battery first in that situation, unless you’ve configured it not to do so.

Ah, thanks. Good to know there’s an option for this as well. Many thanks!!

No worries, just in case it helps, do you mind if I give you a little bonus item too?

https://support.hypervolt.co.uk/knowledge-base/charging-modes may just be what you’re looking for. If you’re using Charge Anytime you might not be able to set these and you’ll probably want to keep it on Boost mode, but I’ll leave this here for you anyway.

Subject to a minimum of 1.4kW being available which, as far as I know, is common to all vehicles. If you have a cloud pass over the charging will cut out and presumably restart when it clears. On some days this will result in the car starting and stopping charging frequently. I'm not sure if anyone knows this is detrimental to the life of the battery but probably not. Some people charge the battery from solar and then charge the car from the battery.

Peter

Well, on the default charge mode Boost, charging will continue from any available source even if the sun isn’t shining. But you can change that behaviour if you want though so it shuts down if insufficient solar is available.

And certainly some of the adverse behaviours in having a battery, solar and EV charging combination are due to the quite complicated options that have to be set correctly in order for it to behave as you are expecting. Not only that as there is so little solar in the winter it may have to be reconfigured for that and it's beyond some people to manage effectively and that is obvious from another forum I visit regularly.

​@Blastoise186 Does setting the Charging mode to boost mean I won’t get Charge Anytime Savings every charge/month for power used from the Grid? Thanks

Whatever profile is set is probably the best one. Hypervolt is really good at sorting itself out! :)

Based on that, if it’s on Boost then you’ll probably want to leave it that way. Just as long as you’re not using the Urgent Charge feature, you should get Charge Anytime credits.

Hi there, I’ve just had an Ohme charger installed and have had solar panels for years. I didn’t realise they would make ev tariffs unavailable to me. I wanted to get the anytime tariff but can’t for this reason. 
 

I would like to take part because at this moment in time I’m going to have no choice but to switch providers which I’m reluctant to do. 

Hey ​@Lisa C 

Thanks for you interest in this. I’ll send you a private message shortly. 

Hi.

ive got solar + battery + EV + hypervolt just installed. My thoughts would be to very rarely use the solar to charge the EV as I’d be using solar charge otherwise destined for appliances charged at the standard rate. As I can charge EV at 7p/KWh should always probably use this in preference to solar.

i guess there will be some circumstances when exporting to grid, but with our weather probably limited.

That’s a lot of green tech ​@Colingray83! Great stuff 😊 I’ve added the relevant green tech badges to your account. 

I’ve only just seen this thread. I’m an early adopter with solar panels (not with OVO for FIT and income from generation) and an Indra smart charger plus two EVs. AFAIK, the charger will operate outside off-peak hours when there is sufficient power from the panels. Once triggered, it seems to continue to charge even if the panels drop in generation below the critical turn-on level. I have never studied the costs sufficiently to see what I am charged or credited with for the various scenarios when the panels are producing. Indeed, early on I asked Indra if they could tell me the algorithms used, but this is a bit of a closed book with them and Kaluza as presumably no-one wants cheating to happen, so I am still ignorant.

I am happy to partake in the study.

Tony

I’ll private message you now ​@tony1tf 😊

Hi, I have just had solar panels fitted and also have ‘Charge Anytime’ and would like to take part.  I am with OVO, had solar panels fitted via OVO have charge anytime and an EV.