SolarCharge
Harness solar energy to power your EV at home. SolarCharge integrates with your existing solar setup, reducing charging costs and promoting a greener lifestyle.
What is SolarCharge?
SolarCharge is like harnessing the energy of the sun right into your EV – bringing you a more sustainable and cost-effective home-charging experience. You can feel confident that your CO2 impact is even lower than before.
At Monta, we’re constantly setting a new standard in EV charging. With SolarCharge, we’ve created a feature that lets you tailor your home-charging experience to fit your lifestyle – precisely, comfortably, and sustainably.
The problem
Solar panels are an expensive investment for homeowners. On top of that, integrating a solar setup with an EV charger can result in additional expenses and further complications. A homeowner might need to buy a new charger that supports solar charging, lay new cables, and could end up paying for costly apps/software subscriptions to manage their solar charge setup.
What is Monta’s solution?
With SolarCharge, homeowners won’t have to change anything about their existing solar setup. The feature integrates with any solar panel hardware and takes 5 minutes to set up. See which charge point models are supported here.
Why choose Monta’s SolarCharge?
100% solar energy
Monta’s SolarCharge algorithm aligns solar energy supply with EV charging demand, enabling you to charge your EV with 100% solar energy.
Zero modifications to existing solar setup
Any solar installation will be able to use SolarCharge, along with any supporting chargers.
Easy setup guaranteed
Setting up SolarCharge takes less than 10 minutes and can be done by anyone. Based on the set up you’ll be guided in the app.
Charging at no cost
With SolarCharge, you can maximise your solar panels to cut EV charging costs at home, sometimes even charging for free. It helps recover your investment faster while supporting a greener, more sustainable future.
How SolarCharge works
Surplus SolarCharge
Transform your surplus solar energy into savings and drive your EV with clean, renewable energy. When your solar panels generate more electricity than your home needs, that extra energy can be used to charge your EV. This means you’re making the most of the energy you produce instead of selling it back to the grid for less money.
Get Surplus SolarCharge up and running with hardware-based solutions:
- CT-Clamps: Connect easily to selected charging points.
- Smart meter integration: Get the required data directly from your meter.
Forecast-based SolarCharge
Optimise your energy use by charging your EV when solar energy is available. Forecast-based SolarCharge estimates electricity generation based on factors like weather and historical data. A key benefit is that this solution works with any charge point, requiring no hardware installation. Therefore, it is completely free.
Surplus SolarCharge vs. Forecast-based SolarCharge
Surplus SolarCharge maximises excess solar energy for EV charging, allowing you to fully benefit from your solar panels without selling energy back to the grid at lower rates — reducing electricity costs, and enhancing returns on solar investments.
In contrast, Forecast-based SolarCharge relies on predicted solar production, which may not align with your actual energy use. This can lead to situations where you consume all your solar energy for household needs, resulting in drawing electricity from the grid and potentially increasing your costs.
FAQ
If you have solar panels and a compatible EV charger, follow this guide to activate Monta’s Virtual SolarCharge in the app.
SolarCharge is available in all Monta-operated markets. Check our database to find compatible charge points.
Forecast based solar charging refers to optimising EV charging based on solar energy production forecasts. It is using solar energy predictions to schedule charging times when solar power generation is expected to be at its peak, maximising the use of renewable energy.
With a piece of hardware like a smart meter integration or ct clamps connected to the cp we know the exact amount of the electricity that is left over after all the consumers in the house took their share. Therefore we can purely charge with the surplus.
We believe that forecast-based SolarCharge is a great way to get started using your solar energy. But to get the most out of the surplus, SolarCharge is the way to go as it takes the rest of the consumption in the house into account.
Most EVs and chargers have a charging limit of 6 amps, which means that charging is only possible when the solar panels are producing that much energy from the sun. That usually means 1.4kW depending on the geographic region and electrical installation of the charge point. If the solar panels produce less than 1.4kW of energy, then SolarCharging will be paused until power increases above that threshold.
Discover more features
OCPP
SmartCharge
SolarCharge
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