Great news! You can now use Solar Charging for free, even if you don’t have a Tibber energy contract. With the latest updates to your Pulse and charging station, this smart feature is available to all users.
How to Enable Solar Charging
To get started with Solar Charging, follow these steps:
1. Add Your Charger and Car.
In the Tibber app, navigate to:
Power-ups > Charging > Chargers
Find your brand and add your charger.
Now, add your car in the same place.
Some cars are integrated via their own power-ups, while others are called "non-integrated".
On the integrated cars, you log in using the log-in information that you use in the car's native app. On these cars we can automatically fetch the battery level and battery size.
For non-integrated cars you'll need to manually adjust the battery levels so that they match your actual car.
Is your car not listed? Choose the Tibber Dummy-vehicle and select the correct battery size.
2. Let Tibber Know You Have Solar Panels
To access the Solar Charging option in your car widget settings, make sure you’ve indicated that you have solar panels in your home profile in the Tibber app. Without this, the Solar Charging option won’t be visible.
3. Enable Solar Charging
Once your car is added:
Open the charger widget in the app.
Tap the settings icon (gear) in the top right corner.
Toggle on Solar Charging.
Note: If you already had a car added and Solar Charging was enabled, switch it off and back on to activate the updated version of the feature.
How Solar Charging Works
Solar Charging ensures your battery is fully charged using as much solar energy as possible, before your next departure.
Here's how the system works:
We know how full your battery is. For integrated vehicles, we get this info directly. For others, you update it manually using the slider in the car widget.
You can set your next departure time in the car widget settings, and even define recurring schedules for each day of the week.
After a few charging sessions, the system learns your average charging speed.
Based on your departure time, required energy, and solar forecasts, the system calculates the best charging plan.
It also checks real-time Pulse data to detect solar surplus. If solar energy is insufficient to reach your target, charging will continue during the cheapest hours, based on dynamic pricing. These hours often align with high solar availability or a clean energy mix overnight.
Can I Use Solar Charging with a Fixed-Rate Energy Contract?
Yes, you can still benefit from Solar Charging even with a fixed-rate contract:
The system prioritizes your real-time solar surplus to decide when to charge.
If no solar energy is available, it will still charge during daytime low-cost hours, which often coincide with solar generation.
In the near future, we’ll release a version of Solar Charging optimized for users with fixed-rate plans and feed-in tariffs.
How Much Surplus is Needed to Start Charging?
Single-phase charger: Requires at least 1,380 watts of surplus solar power.
Three-phase charger: Requires at least 4,140 watts.
This is because electric vehicles only begin charging at a minimum of 6 amps per phase.
We are currently testing a new version of the algorithm that allows the shortfall to be topped up with grid energy, so more of your solar surplus can still be used for charging.