If you are generating energy from solar (or wind), you can choose if you want to charge your car with surplus energy rather than exporting it back to the grid. There are currently two modes for this in the Charging energy settings:
- Limited grid usage: will use energy from both the grid and solar/wind.
- Surplus only: will charge your car using only surplus energy.
Surplus charging is only available if Easee is listed as the site operator.
Selecting the Limited grid usage option means it will start charging the car with at least 6 A (or a selected value between 1 - 6) when you plug it in, regardless of the surplus amount. When there is available surplus energy, it will replace grid energy with the available amount. If the surplus amount exceeds 6 A, it will stop using grid energy. This option guarantees the car will charge at a minimum rate regardless of the solar/wind conditions.
Selecting the Surplus only option means your car will charge only when surplus energy exceeds 6A (1.4KW) on at least one phase. This requires a minimum of 6A on either L1, L2 or L3 to initiate charging.
To charge with 3 phases, the surplus energy must exceed 6A on all three phases simultaneously.
Important Note: Your car requires the same amount of current on all three phases.
Example: If your energy production is:Your production is:
L1: 6A
L2: 8A
L3: 8A
Your car will charge with 6A on all three phases, as it is limited by the lowest available surplus.
If you have an active schedule, the surplus charging will only work inside that period. This might not be ideal unless your renewable energy comes from wind.
To enable surplus charging, navigate to the Equalizer card in the Easee app:
- Press the Surplus energy button.
- Select Limited grid usage to use grid energy when the generated solar/wind energy is less than 6 A.
- Select Surplus only to charge only when more than 6 A is supplied from surplus energy.
- Drag the popup card down to return to the Equalizer card.
Information about phase mode:
In auto phase mode, the charger switches from three-phase to single-phase if the load is too high. This protects the relays and ensures the session completes on single-phase, even if capacity returns.
To switch back to three-phase after capacity increases, manually pause and restart the session in the app.
The same applies to solar power. If charging starts on single-phase and solar production exceeds 6A on all phases, the Equalizer won't switch to three-phase automatically. Manually stop and restart the session to activate three-phase charging.
For chargers locked to three-phase using only solar power, charging will start only if production remains at 6A on all phases for at least 10 minutes.
In both settings, the car will charge with as much surplus energy as possible. The car can charge with up to 32 A surplus energy if it is available.
When enabling surplus charging, it must have 10 minutes of stable exported energy before the charging can start.
Requirements:
- Easee app at least version 1.5.9.
- Equalizer firmware at least version 117.
- Easee must be set as the operator.
- Works with TN 1- and 3-phase, and IT 1-phase (not IT 3-phase).
- Equalizer device mode can not be Static.
- The Equalizer must report historical export data (indicating that energy has been exported to the grid sometime in the past).
- The total cumulative active export data must be more than 25 kWh.