Why can't you support data from multiple solar inverters or batteries?

In order to match the EV charging power to the available excess solar, Charge HQ uses data feeds from solar inverters and home batteries.

Across the range of supported equipment, we see:

• Different inverter makes and models updating at different frequencies
• Individual installations of the same makes updating at different rates
• Variation between how often an inverter sends updated data to the cloud, and how long it takes those updates to be available to us
• Systems updating at a given frequency in normal conditions but slowing down from time to time due to faults or outages
• Different vendors placing different restrictions on how frequently we can collect data
• Where home batteries are installed, data being impacted by the battery rapidly adjust to the amount of solar production and home energy use

Based on the data received, the EV charge rate is constantly adjusted, which in turn alters the amount of available solar reported in the subsequent update from the solar inverter or home battery.

Given this inherent variability and complexity, combining separate data feeds to maintain a reliable view of excess solar available for EV charging becomes a very difficult task.

As a result, Charge HQ only supports a single source of solar data. In many cases where multiple inverters are installed, data from one appliance will be sufficient for Charge HQ to work well. See our guide for sites with multiple inverters.