Charging with Amber

Drivers who buy their energy at wholesale prices from Amber Electric can link their Amber price feed with Evnex, enabling them to:

• Get accurate session costs
• Trigger charging behaviour based on the current price

Connecting your account

To share your pricing with Evnex, tap on "Charging Settings" in the main menu, and then the link at the bottom of the page which begins "Connect your account...". Follow the instructions to generate an API key on the Amber website and paste it into the box.

🚧

Already using Amber for EVs?

If you already use "Amber for EVs" through a direct connection to your vehicle, please leave this feature off and set your Evnex schedule to always charge. Amber will set the schedule on the vehicle, so your charger should always be set to deliver on cue!

How it works

When electricity prices are very low, your vehicle will be charged at the maximum possible speed using energy from the grid as well as local generation (if available). When prices are high, charging will stop - although "Charge Now" functionality will let you override that if you need to.

In between, when prices are too high for you to want to pay for energy from the grid, but also too low to warrant exporting to earn the feed-in price, solar diversion will be active (if you have solar). Your charger will divert excess generation into your vehicle, whilst avoiding consuming anything from the grid.

To help you keep track of what's going on, the status widget on the home page of your charger will tell you what is happening right now, and when the next change in behaviour will occur (based on the forecast price we read from Amber).

Configuring behaviour

Setting up the exact behaviour you would like involves entering two price thresholds:

Always charge below (c/kWh)

This threshold ensures you take advantage of times when the price of electricity is very low. Whenever electricity costs less than the chosen amount, your vehicle will be charged at the maximum possible speed, using energy from the grid as well as local generation if available. You may even want to set this to a negative number so that you will only charge from the grid at times when you get paid to do so.

Never charge above (c/kWh)

The converse threshold selects the price above which you want charging to stop so that you avoid consuming any expensive energy. Solar diversion will also be inactive, so if you have solar and / or batteries you can export to earn money without the energy being diverted into your vehicle.

If you don't have solar then we recommend setting both thresholds to the same value.

Working with solar / batteries

🚧

Section under development

One of the keys to getting the most out of your wholesale pricing plan with Amber is to ensure your charger is configured to work well with any solar or batteries you have installed. Evnex chargers don't talk directly to your inverter or battery, and instead work out what they are doing by tracking energy being sent to / drawn from the grid.

Your charger can be wired into your ecosystem in such a way that any inverters see it either as part of the house load, or don't see it as a load at all. If you have both solar and a battery, you may have an inverter for each, or a hybrid inverter which handles both.

You may find that at present it's not possible to achieve exactly what you want; if that's the case, please email us on [email protected] outlining your situation and we will do our best to assist.