Netzero can control your EV charger to charge your vehicle on excess solar energy. This is similar to Tesla’s Charge on Solar feature, which only works with Tesla vehicles.
Supported chargers. Charge on Solar requires a charger that allows the charging rate to be set remotely, and that reliably applies the requested rate. This is limited to a small number of chargers: chargers connected through the energy device integration that support charge rate control (for example Wallbox), and OCPP-compatible chargers that implement charging profiles. Most chargers do not support Charge on Solar, and some accept the commands but ignore them. The Enable Charge on Solar switch only appears for chargers where the capability is reported.
For Tesla vehicles, see Tesla Charge on Solar with Powerwall Priority instead.
Connect your EV charger to Netzero. There are two ways to do this:
Energy device integration (most common). In Settings > EV Charging, tap Connect,
select your charger manufacturer, and sign in with your manufacturer account. See
Energy Device Integration
for the supported manufacturers and their capabilities.
OCPP-compatible EV chargers. Configure Netzero as the charger’s OCPP provider. See EV Charger Settings for details.
Once your EV charger is connected, an Enable Charge on Solar switch appears in
Settings > EV Charging. If the switch is missing, the charger does not report support for
setting the charge rate, and Charge on Solar cannot be used with it.
You can configure the minimum Powerwall state of charge before Charge on Solar is enabled. If you set this to 100%, charging will only start once the Powerwall is full. If you set it to 0%, charging will start the moment there is sufficient excess solar energy available.
Also configure the maximum EV charger output current. Consult your EV charger’s configuration or your electrician for the correct value.
For Charge on Solar to be activated, your system has to be in Self-Powered mode, or in Savings mode with Powerwall at 100% state of charge. This is to avoid interfering with Savings mode prioritization.
Charge on Solar detects Tesla’s Optimized Charging behavior, where the Powerwall pauses solar charging at around 80% state of charge and tops off later in the day. When Optimized Charging is active, vehicle charging can start before the Powerwall reaches the configured minimum state of charge, so the excess solar is used for the EV instead of being exported.
There needs to be at least 1440W (6A at 240V) of excess solar power available for charging to start. The charger itself runs at a minimum rate of 7A, since some chargers refuse to start charging at lower rates. If there isn’t sufficient solar power available, charging will pause and resume once there is more power available. For some vehicles this can cause the charging session to stop and fail to resume, so there is also an option to continue charging at the lowest rate when there is not enough solar power.
Charge on Solar will only activate during daylight hours (between sunrise and sunset). If you plug in your vehicle outside of daylight hours, it will proceed to charge at your configured rate. If you prefer to only charge with Charge on Solar, manually stop charging after plugging in the vehicle (using the Netzero app). We may add an option to make this automatic, while allowing scheduled charging from the grid.
Home EV chargers are not aware of the EV state of charge, so unlike Tesla’s Charge on Solar, this feature cannot support a combined grid and solar charging slider.