Solar Charging

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1. Solar charging with your Evnex charger

All Evnex's chargers can be configured for Solar Diversion to use your excess generation to charge your EV. The excess is measured by a current transformer which is included as standard with all home EV charging packages. Your electrician will install it as part of commissioning your charger.

Key Advantages

• Greater self-consumption of your solar energy
• Reduced energy costs
• Cleaner charging

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2. How Evnex Solar Diversion works

Your Evnex charger will continuously monitor your home's power consumption. If your solar panels are generating more than is being used, this will result in an export to the grid. By enabling the Solar Diversion feature you can trigger the charger to use this excess power to charge the car instead.

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How does this work alongside other smart loads?

Evnex chargers act as the 'tail end' of an energy export diversion system. For example, if you have a home battery storage system, you cannot set up your charger to take priority and charge your car before directing power to your battery system - your car will always charge last (unless you use the Charge Now feature to override and charge immediately at full speed).

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3. How do I set up Solar Diversion?

Solar Diversion is configured through the Evnex driver app.

After opening the app, scroll down the home screen until you see a menu button labeled "Solar Diversion". This will include a sub-heading with the status of this setting. Likely this will display as "Inactive" if Solar Diversion has not been set up.

After entering the Solar Diversion settings menu, select the toggle to enable this feature. If your home solar setup includes a battery, we recommend you also turn on the second option, "My solar system includes a battery".

Tap "Apply" to write the new settings.

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I don't see the "Solar Diversion" menu?

Most Evnex chargers installed in homes include a current transformer and are able to use this feature. However, due to site limitations where a current transformer cannot be installed, some drivers may lack the necessary hardware so this option is not available.

If you believe you meet the requirements for the Solar Diversion feature but can't see this option in-app, please contact our support staff for assistance. [email protected]

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Solar by day, grid by night

Initially, when Solar Diversion is enabled your charger will always be on the lookout for exported power to divert. You can see this in the home screen where the sub-heading under Solar Diversion says "Always active". You may find that the excess solar being generated during the day isn't enough to fill your car - perhaps you drive very long distances or it's winter and your panels aren't generating much.

If this is the case, you can use the Charging Schedule option from the home screen to set up a time when you allow your charger to fill the battery using energy from the grid. Many drivers have cheaper power overnight, so setting a window of a few hours can ensure your car is full enough without paying too much. When a charging schedule is applied, the sub-headings will make it clear how the charger is going to behave at different times of the day.

Alternatively, if you just want a one-off full charge from the grid you can enable "Charge Now" either by holding the Evnex button on an E2 charger, or selecting Charge Now in the Controls menu option. This will ignore any solar or schedule settings and simply charge your car right now until either the battery is full or the charger is unplugged. The subsequent charging session will return to normal behaviour.

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Advanced Solar Diversion settings

For most drivers, enabling Solar Diversion feature and (optionally) the battery toggle will give great performance. However, if you wish to tweak the triggers which control Solar Diversion behaviour, read on to find out about the parameters under the Advanced menu.

We recommend leaving the default values as they are unless you have a very good reason to change them.

Start charging when export is more than (kW)

The export threshold which must be exceeded for 60s before your charger will begin solar diversion.

It is important to note that the minimum current that an AC charger can offer to a car is 6A, which means that for single-phase charging the minimum consumption is ~1.4kW and for three-phase charging ~4.2kW.

The default values are:

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How do thresholds work?

The total import / export from your home is calculated by adding up all measured phases. On an E2 this is always just a single phase, but for an X-series charger this could be single or three phase.

It is therefore possible to have a single phase X7 charger monitor up to three phases and use the net total to decide whether to trigger solar diversion or not.

Stop charging when import is more than (kW)

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Systems with batteries

This setting is only relevant for systems without a battery. If you have enabled My solar system includes a battery then please see Stop charging when export is less than (kW).

When the stop import threshold is exceeded for 60s, solar diversion will be paused until such time as the start condition is met again.

The value should be at least 1.5kW away from the start threshold (i.e. “Start charging when export is more than”) for single-phase chargers, or 4.5kW away for three-phase chargers - although we permit numbers down to 1.5kW in case you have a three phase charger but a single phase car / cable. This is to avoid the situation where the stop threshold is exceeded immediately when charging begins.

The default value is 0.5kW

Stop charging when export is less than (kW)

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Systems without batteries

This setting is only relevant for systems with a battery. If you have disabled My solar system includes a battery then please see Stop charging when import is more than (kW).

When the stop export threshold cannot be sustained for 60s, solar diversion will be paused until such time as the start condition is met again.

The value should be at least 1.5kW less than the start threshold (i.e. “Start charging when export is more than”) for single-phase chargers, or 4.5kW for three-phase chargers - although we permit numbers down to 1.5kW in case you have a three phase charger but a single phase car / cable. This is to avoid the situation where the stop threshold is exceeded immediately when charging begins.

The default value is 0.2kW

Target export while charging (kW)

While charging under solar diversion, your charger will vary the charging rate in an attempt to maintain this level of export to the grid.

If your solar setup does not include a battery, this will be set at zero so that solar diversion will aim to charge at the exact rate to cause neither import nor export.

For drivers with a battery, this number is your 'contingency' to ensure that the battery does not step in to contribute to charging your car. By intentionally exporting a small amount of power you ensure that the battery never detects a shortfall and thus never begins to discharge.

The default values are:

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4. Monitoring your Solar Diversion

There are several ways you can monitor your solar diversion after completing the initial setup. This includes a visual graph displayed in several parts of the app including the expanded charging widget on the home screen, the Charging Summary and your Session History list.

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5. Assistance with your Solar Diversion

If you're still unsure how to set up Solar Diversion for your charger or have questions, you can contact our support team for assistance during business hours at (NZ) 0800 395 007 | (AU) 1800 959 377 or email [email protected].