Start charging condition

[andrut1291]

Hello,

First of all thank you for this automation. After some problems with initial beta version its finally working with my M3 with Fleet API.

What I wanted to mention here in this topic is the condition of starting the charger. It starts regardless of 'Main power net' value being negative. I believe only the sunrise condition > 6 degrees is relevant. Due to that in a cloudy morning weather you end up with more consumption than production and charging from the grid is required.

Below actual situation which happened to me:

[flashg1]

Good to hear that you finally got it started!

Which version are you using? Is it the latest version?

It tells you here,

Did you do anything special to make it work? Did you manually change the polling interval for Tesla Fleet API described here https://www.home-assistant.io/common-tasks/general/#defining-a-custom-polling-interval ? I suspect there might be more work required to get this automation to work properly with Tesla Fleet API.

Please see here for more info on what are the triggers for this automation, https://github.com/flashg1/TeslaSolarCharger/wiki/evSolarCharger-automation-triggers

About your chart, not sure what the chart represents without scale and axis labels? The red line representing power consumption in watts by the charger or the whole house? The blue line is the power generation from the solar panels?

What make of charger are you using? Telsa wall connector or UMC charger, or another make?

It starts regardless of 'Main power net' value being negative.

Negative implies available power for charging car. Positive means charger need to reduce power by the same amount.

[andrut1291]

I am using now v3.0beta25. Using tesla wall connector https://shop.tesla.com/en_gb/product/mobile-connector (230V, 1 phase, 5-13 Amps)

As you see the 'Main power net' is positive throughtout the whole cloudy morning nonetheless the car started to charge.
The load is the whole house shown, but as the households members slept there is no usage spikes - only 170-300 W of background usage - the 5x230V = 1150W out of it is a charger.

[flashg1]

Not sure what is happening. Please send me your trace file.

Settings > Automations > select your automation > Trace > Download trace

You couldn't get it started before. Did you do anything special to get it started? I suggest you also try with the latest version.

[flashg1]

Please also do following,

Settings > Automations > select your automation > Trace

Click on the 2 circled locations, and inspect the feedbackLoopPower and newChargeCurrent to see if it makes sense. May be provide a screenshot as well.

[andrut1291]

Hey,
SS below + trace.
Seems like only sun elevation condition is taken into account when triggering initial charge ?

trace automation.ev_solar_charger_automation 2025-03-25T05_26_36.473754+00_00.json

[flashg1]

The reason why it is charging at 5A is because you set the "Charger minimum current" to 5A !

If you set it to the default 0A, it should follow the sun.

Seems like only sun elevation condition is taken into account when triggering initial charge ?

Correct. Like I said, the only triggers that can start this automation are,

1. Sunrise at specified elevation, or
2. When you plug in the charger.

This will then switch on the charger once to begin the charging process. On sunset, or when it reaches the desired charge limit, it will then switch off the charger once to end the charging process.

To determine if the automation is running, you can add the following to your dashboard,

https://github.com/flashg1/evSolarCharger?tab=readme-ov-file#dashboard-ev-solar-charger-control

[andrut1291]

I did 5A, as in the Tesla APP I cannot go below 5A.

Anyway I will set it to 0 and lets see if it works.

Thank you, will follow up how it goes.

[andrut1291]

Hey,
I changed min Amps to 0 and it works fine now. It does not trigger the charging until there is an excess power from the inverter.

[flashg1]

Good to hear that it is working for you.

Just wondering whether you did any special configuration for Tesla Fleet API? eg. changing the polling frequency?

Since you don't have the force update button like in Tesla Custom API, do you have issues with entities not being up-to-date? I am not familiar with how Tesla Fleet API works.