Solar tracking enables your EV to charge from your solar automatically. It can be configured to work in different ways. The availability of some features depend on the equipment you have installed.
NOTE: Solar tracking can be combined with scheduled charging and the price and renewables limits, and will be overridden by those settings. For example, if a Scheduled Charge Period is configured overnight, charging will occur at that time even though there is no solar and solar tracking is enabled.
Solar tracking requires a supported solar inverter or battery, see Inverters.
Solar tracking works best for sites with an energy meter but can function without one.
If your solar inverter has an energy meter then Charge HQ can track your excess solar. Excess solar is the part of solar generation that you are not consuming in your home and would otherwise export to the grid. If your inverter does not include a consumption meter then Charge HQ can only track the solar generation, although you can reserve a fixed amount of solar for household use (see the Solar Tracking Margin setting).
If you want to charge only from solar and avoid grid imports, select Solar Only mode. Be aware that charging will stop whenever the available solar is too low, and may not restart for 15 minutes (see Reducing Contactor Wear). Charging will not occur outside of solar hours.
If you want to charge mostly from solar and don't want to start and stop all the time, and don't mind some grid imports, select Solar + Grid. This may also be a better choice for those with smaller solar systems whose output may drop below the minimum level more often.
If you want to charge from solar during the day, then top-up overnight to the minimum charge level you need eg 50%, you can combine solar tracking with Scheduled Charging to achieve this.
Solar Only: charging power will track available solar. If available solar falls below the minimum charging rate then charging will be stopped. The car will not charge from the grid (or home battery) provided you have an energy meter.
Solar + Grid: charging power will track available solar. If available solar falls below the minimum charging rate then charging will continue at the minimum rate, with the shortfall being imported from the grid (or battery if present). Charging will stop outside of solar hours.
Notes
Minimum Charging Rate
The minimum charging rate depends on your equipment:
This setting determines whether excess solar is sent to the EV or the household battery first. It is available for those who have a household battery.
Battery (default): the household battery will be charged before the EV. Notes:
EV: the EV will be charged before the battery.
A percentage charge limit can also be set on EV or Battery priority. For battery priority, with a priority charge limit set of 80%, the battery will use excess solar up to 80%, then the EV will charge until full or when available before again returning priority to the battery.
When operating in Battery priority with a priority limit of say 80% will often allow the EV to charge earlier whilst still allowing the home battery to charge to 100% each day. This occurs as home battery can operate a lower minimum charge rates (<5A) and adapt more rapidly at smaller increments of charge rate (<1A).
The Battery Priority Charge Limit control is not available when the "Consumption Excludes Charging" setting is enabled
Learn more in the battery priority charge limit guide.
Advanced settings provide customisations for less common solar, battery and charging configurations. Most users do not need to change these settings.
Excess Solar: only excess solar is used for charging. Excess solar = generation - household consumption. In other words, solar power is used by the household (and possibly battery) first, and any left over will be used for EV charging. This is the default setting when a consumption meter is present.
Solar Generation: all solar generation will be used for EV charging. Household consumption will be drawn from the grid. This is the implied setting when there is no consumption meter.
NOTE: this setting is only visible if a consumption meter is present. If no consumption meter is present then Charge HQ can only see the solar generation. In this case the Solar Tracking Margin setting may be useful.
If set, charging will stop when solar generation is below this value.
This value defaults to 0.2 kW, which means charging will stop outside of solar hours in both Solar Only and Solar + Grid modes.
NOTE: this value is simply a threshold that causes charging to start or stop - it does not impact the charging power calculation.
If set, charging will stop when excess solar is below this value.
This setting is generally only useful for those whose charging power can't be controlled, eg older Teslas. For most people this setting isn't useful because Solar Only mode will already stop when the excess solar is too low, and Solar + Grid mode will also stop outside of solar hours.
This setting is only available for those with a consumption meter.
NOTE: this value is simply a threshold that causes charging to start or stop - it does not impact the charging power calculation.
This setting allows adjusting the charging power above or below the available solar, such that:
charging power = available solar - margin
This is intended to be used by those without a consumption meter to reserve some of the solar generation for household use. For example, if your home typically uses around 1 kW of power, you might set this value to 1 kW. Admittedly it is difficult to know how much power your home uses without a consumption meter :)
Negative values may be used. A negative value will cause charging power to exceed the available solar, leading to imports from the grid.
Setting a negative solar tracking margin will prevent home battery prioritisation from working.
This setting should be enabled if you usually use three phase charging with Charge HQ. This setting will impact the solar tracking calculations, especially before charging starts or if you have a smart charger.
Charge HQ will automatically enable this setting if it detects three phase charging. This is not always possible with all charging setups.
If you use both three phase and single phase charging at home then this setting should be enabled.
This setting should be enabled if your solar monitoring frequently reports negative consumption. This is usually caused by a second unmonitored solar inverter. This setting allows solar tracking to work properly when negative consumption is reported.
Charge HQ will automatically enable this setting if it detects negative consumption for at least 15 minutes. See Multiple Inverters for more details.
This setting must be enabled if your EV charging is not included in your consumption monitoring. In other words, if your solar monitoring can't "see" the EV charging. Only a small number of homes are setup this way.
Charge HQ does not automatically enable this setting - it must be enabled manually.
Please read the detailed guide on the Consumption Excludes Charging setting before enabling it.
