Price and Renewables Settings

For Australian users, Charge HQ can alter charging based on wholesale energy prices or the level of renewable energy being fed into the grid at any given time.

Currently these states in Australia are supported:

• Queensland
• New South Wales & ACT
• Victoria
• Tasmania
• South Australia

High energy prices can be reflective of periods of unusually high demand, or shortages of supply. Setting a price based charging limit can help reduce the strain that EV charging places on the grid, and elevated costs incurred by participants.

Amber Electric is an Australian electricity retailer that passes through wholesale electricity prices to customers.

Price Source

• None: Disables use of variable or wholesale energy price as an input.
• AEMO spot price: this is the live wholesale energy price as published by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
• Amber: for Amber customers, this adopts their individual variable energy price in real time, taking into account both the wholesale energy price and underlying network and system charges.

Amber API Token

If you use Amber Electric for your electricity retailer, adding an API token will let the Charge HQ app see your live energy rates. To obtain:

• Login to the Amber website
• Settings -> Enable Developer mode

• For Developers -> Click "Generate an API Token"
• Choose a name, perhaps Charge HQ or a description of your vehicle
• Click Generate
• The token will be displayed on screen, copy this text

• Login to the Charge HQ web app
• Paste the Amber API Token

Troubleshooting

If you receive an error "Error Failed to add Amber API token" it is usually because you're a new Amber customer and your account setup is not complete with them. Whilst your account status in the Amber app is shown as "Pending" this error will occur.

For users that already have a smart meter this usually resolves in a few days. If you're waiting on a smart meter upgrade it may take a few weeks.

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NEM Region

The NEM Region refers to the National Electricity Market in Australia. The regions match the states which this market covers. Set it to the state you are based in.

For those in WA: stay tuned!

Do Not Charge Price

If you are NOT using Solar Tracking, the Do Not Charge Price is not used.

If you ARE using Solar Tracking, when the current price (AEMO or Amber) exceeds this value then charging will be stopped.

When charging from solar and using the Amber reference price, the Do Not Charge Price will be compared against the current Feed in Tariff rate. When charging from a mix of Grid + Solar, the FiT (export) price will be used when excess solar is above 1 kW, otherwise the grid (import) price will be used.

Energy prices can vary from below 20c/kWh up to 1,500 c/kWh. Outside of periods of peak demand or shortages of supply prices should normally stay below 100 c/kWh.

Note: solar charging will be stopped when the price exceeds this value. See this guide for details.

Always Charge Price

When the current price (AEMO or Amber grid/import price) falls below this value then charging will start at the Default Charge Amps (typically max charge rate) and continue until the either a) vehicle charge limit is reached, or b) the grid/import price increases above this value again. This can occur at any time day or night. This setting is of most use to those with solar.

To use, set this value to match a price which represents unusually cheap power that you would like to take advantage of.

Notes:

• This setting will override solar tracking when it is enabled, but will respect any Scheduled Do Not Charge periods.
• This setting will override the Min Renewables setting: if the price is below this setting then charging will occur regardless of grid renewables.
• If you have a home battery, this setting may cause your EV to charge from your home battery when the price is low.

Min Renewables

This value sets a limit on the minimum percentage of energy being generated by the renewable sources on the grid for the selected NEM region. When the level of renewables falls below this value then charging will be stopped. Using energy during periods of higher renewables generation helps create demand for them which supports their ongoing development.

See https://opennem.org.au/ for live and historical values of the percentage of renewables at any given time which may guide you on setting this value.

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