Your Complete Guide to Home EV Charging
The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is rapidly increasing. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, Australia saw an average of 278 new EVs purchased daily. Home charging is the most cost-effective way to power your vehicle, making the choice of the right charger essential. Choosing the right EV charger is essential for efficient and cost-effective home charging. Don't be caught out with the wrong charger for your EV charging needs.
There are three main types of EV chargers, each offering different levels of functionality and control.
Level 1 chargers are the most basic, providing a simple, straightforward way to charge your EV by plugging into a standard outlet without any advanced features. These chargers are slow and lack scheduling and monitoring capabilities, which can lead to higher energy costs if charging occurs during peak hours.
Standard chargers offer moderate control, allowing you to set charging times and monitor the process through a basic interface. They are more efficient than Level 1 chargers, enabling you to take advantage of off-peak electricity rates and reduce energy costs.
OCPP chargers (Open Charge Point Protocol) provide the most advanced control, supporting remote monitoring, scheduling, and integration with smart home systems, offering the highest level of efficiency and flexibility for managing your EV charging.
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Charge your EV from your solar with CATCH Control
Integrating your EV Charger with CATCH Control is straightforward and offers numerous benefits.
CATCH Control is at the heart of your solar system integrating with your inverter and communicated via OCPP with compatible EV Chargers. Allowing for smarter charging based on solar inputs, scheduled charging or Wholesale energy pricing.
Unlike other solutions, CATCH Control communicates directly with the inverter on site, enabling real-time tracking of solar production without delays. This immediate access to information allows CATCH Control to adjust the EV charging output within seconds, optimizing your energy use and reducing running costs.
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Introducing CATCH Control
CATCH Control is an advanced energy management system that replaces your solar inverter’s energy meter, becoming the heart of your home energy system.
This allows for smarter and more efficient home energy management. With CATCH Control, you gain comprehensive features such as export limiting, detailed consumption data, access to Plan Optimisation, Load Control, and EV Charge Control. This system ensures optimal use of solar energy, smart scheduling, and real-time adjustments, enhancing both your energy efficiency and cost savings.
Optimise your Charging with CATCH Control
CATCH Control monitors your home’s solar production and automatically manages your EV charging to utilise excess solar.
By connecting directly to your compatible EV charger via OCPP, CATCH Control eliminates the need for additional hardware for users with compatible equipment.
When in Solar Tracking modes CATCH Control needs to register 1400w's of surplus solar to establish a stable connection with your EV. Once you have established this connection CATCH will manage the rate your EV charges at based on available solar. These changes are almost immediate, reacting within seconds of a change of conditions.
You can set multiple schedules based on your needs, scheduling charging times during off-peak rates and fitting in with your lifestyle.
Any schedule can easily be over-ridden in the main scheduling screen for immediate updates to how your system is operating.
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Remote Control
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Intuitive App
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Solar Tracking
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Battery Control
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EV Charge
Optimisation
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Wholesale
Markets
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Advanced
Scheduling
Advanced Scheduling
Advanced scheduling allows you to set daily, weekly, or seasonal charging cycles tailored to your specific needs. You can align these schedules with your energy plan to take advantage of cheaper EV rates during off-peak hours or specific times when energy costs are lower. This feature ensures that your EV charging is both cost-effective and convenient, providing flexibility to match your lifestyle and maximize savings.
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Set Date Ranges
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Daily
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Time
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Can be easily overridden.
Set Point Charging
Effortlessly manage your EV charger with a simple press of a button. Instantly turn your charger on or off. You can customise the charging rate to suit your needs, choosing the amount of power that is delivered to your vehicle. This advanced feature allows you to efficiently track and utilise solar energy, providing flexibility and ensuring your charging requirements are met.
Set Point Charging
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Run different schedules for different days
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Turn your Charger On and Off
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Decide Charging Times
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Choose your charging rate
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Advanced Solar Tracking
With Advanced Solar Tracking, you have complete control over how much of your solar energy is used to charge your EV. Choose to utilise all of your solar power or only a portion, you can even exceed the available solar energy by drawing additional power from the grid. You can also just use excess solar that would have otherwise been exported to the grid.
This flexibility ensures that you can optimise your EV charging to match your energy needs and preferences.
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Set Time and Date Ranges
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Charge just on Exported Solar
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Have other loads you want to take priority? Set what percentage of your solar go towards Charging
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You can even choose an allowable threshold you would like to import from the grid.
Battery Control
The true power of CATCH Control lies in its seamless integration with your home’s energy system. With our advanced battery exclusion technology, we ensure that your batteries are used efficiently, preventing them from discharging into heavy loads like your EV.
Set Exclusion Zones: Decide exactly where your battery power goes, ensuring it’s reserved for essential household needs rather than high-demand devices.
Manual Charge and Discharge: Take full control of your battery by manually setting charging and discharging times to optimize energy usage and savings.
Optimize with EV Plans: If you have an EV energy plan, CATCH Control can prevent your battery from discharging during "free" energy periods and ensure it tops up when prices are low. This smart management helps you take full advantage of your energy plan, maximising savings and efficiency.
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Faster Charge Rates
CATCH Control intelligently connects to your electricity supplier, allowing it to monitor grid conditions in real-time. When the grid is experiencing high demand, our system will automatically slow down your EV charging to alleviate stress on the network. This proactive approach ensures that during periods of normal demand, your electricity supplier permits faster charging rates, knowing that CATCH Control will manage the load effectively when necessary. This means you can enjoy quicker charging times without compromising grid stability.
Energy Market Control
Not only can you charge your EV for free based on wholesale pricing, but you can also get paid to charge your EV!
True 5-Minute Pricing Data: With real-time 5-minute pricing data, you can take full advantage of fluctuations in the wholesale energy market.
Did you know you can make money while charging your EV? If you're with a wholesale market energy retailer like Amber, CATCH Control can turn your EV on when wholesale prices are low or even negative, and turn it off when prices are high. This smart management ensures that you save money and potentially earn by strategically charging your EV based on real-time energy prices.
Secondary EV Charger Plug Control
Many premises now have two EV’s to charge. Most homes do not have the power supply to cope with two EV Chargers. A 15A EV outlet is a good way to charge your second car while waiting for the primary charger. With CATCH Control that 15A outlet can be controlled in many of the same ways as your primary EV Charger can.
• Turn your charging ON/OFF
• Battery Lockout
• Scheduling
• Energy Market Control
• A reduced version of Solar Tracking
What is CATCH Control:
CATCH Control is an advanced energy management system designed to optimize your home’s energy usage. CATCH Control replaces your solar inverter’s energy meter, becoming the central component of your homes energy system. This allows for more precise and advanced energy management. By communicating directly with your inverter, CATCH Control receives real-time data on solar production, energy consumption, and battery status. This immediate access to information enables CATCH Power to make quick decisions and efficiently manage your energy loads.
Seamless Integration: CATCH Control integrates with over 16 Single Phase inverter brands and can connect via Modbus RS485, RTU, Modbus TCP. This allows CATCH Control to manage your Inverter output controlling export limits and curtail your inverter based on pricing signals.
Rapid Response: CATCH Control uses Current Transformers (CT's) to measure the power flow to and from your property in real-time. CATCH Control reads this information every 100 milliseconds ensuring precise and immediate adjustments to your system. Our Single Phase device has two CT's, one to measure the Solar and another the Mains, allowing us to calculate Solar Productions, household loads and export/imported energy to the property. Our 6 Channel device has 6 CT's that can be used to measure data across all three phases of a property or individual circuits on a single phase property.
Load Control: CATCH Control can manage a load on an individual circuit via a dedicated contactor and schedule the operation of this load based on solar exports, time, or pricing signals. Multiple CATCH Control devices can be installed at a property for additional loads.
EV Charge Control: For electric vehicle owners, CATCH Control offers advanced EV charging via OCPP with compatible chargers. It controls charging schedules based on solar production, EV energy plans, or pricing signals, ensuring efficient and economical charging.
Battery Control: CATCH Control intelligently manages compatible DC batteries by utilising real-time data via CT readings or OCPP connections. Homeowners can determine if the battery should discharge into loads, such as hot water systems or EV charging. This preserves energy for essential household needs and ensures efficient battery use. Set additional charging cycles based on cheap energy rates or wholesale prices when applicable.
Plan Optimisation: All CATCH Control customers gain free access to Solar Analytics platform including Plan Optimiser and Battery sizing tools. This ensures homeowners are always on the best energy plans based on their individual usage.
By having centralised and optimizing your home’s energy management, CATCH Control ensures that you make the most of your solar energy system while achieving significant cost savings and enhancing overall efficiency.
Compatibility
At CATCH Power we ensure that every EV charger compatible with our system undergoes rigorous testing at our warehouse in Glen Innes. While our current list of compatible chargers may not be extensive, we are continually expanding it by adding new models that meet our stringent standards. Each charger is thoroughly tested before being included in our compatibility list to guarantee optimal performance and seamless integration.
Our testing process involves extensive evaluations to ensure that the chargers can effectively communicate with CATCH Control, manage solar energy utilisation, and operate reliably under various conditions. This meticulous approach ensures that users experience the best possible performance and efficiency when charging their electric vehicles.
We are committed to regularly updating and expanding our list of compatible chargers. As we continue to test and validate new models, we aim to provide a broader range of options for our users, ensuring that they have access to the latest and most efficient EV charging solutions on the market.
Stay tuned for updates as we continue to grow our list of compatible EV chargers, offering more choices and ensuring that CATCH Control remains at the forefront of smart energy management for electric vehicles.
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Ocular
Zappi
CITA
EVNEX
Jet Charge
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Wallbox
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Schneider
Sigenergy 25kW DC
Sigenergy 22kW AC
Sinexcell
Level 1 Charging
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Installation Cost: Low ($200 - $300)
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Charge Rate: ~1.5 kW (10 km of range per hour)
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Time: ~37 hours for full charge
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Charging Cost: Low, depends on electricity rate
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Level of Control from Solar: Limited
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Solar Input: Minimal, can use off-peak solar
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Dynamic Imports in QLD: Not applicable
Level 2 Charging
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Installation Cost: Medium ($1,000 - $2,000)
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Charge Rate: ~7 kW (50 km of range per hour)
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Time: ~8.5 hours for full charge
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Charging Cost: Moderate, cheaper with solar
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Level of Control from Solar: Lacks the ability to communicate with Solar Inputs, Wholesale Market Pricing and local DNSP. No Remote Control or Scheduling.
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Solar Input: Limited due to no comms.
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Dynamic Imports in QLD: Non-Compliant Ripple Control Device required.
Level 2 Charging with OCPP
What is OCPP?
OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) is an open-source standard enabling communication between EV chargers and central management systems, ensuring smooth operation and efficient network management.
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Installation Cost: Medium ($1,500 - $3,000)
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Charge Rate: ~7 kW Single Phase (50 km of range per hour)
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Time: ~8.5 hours for full charge
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Charging Cost: Low. Can Charge entirely from solar (If you can make the most of it)
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Level of Control from Solar: High. Integrates with Solar and wholesale electricity market.
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Solar Input: Yes
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Dynamic Imports in QLD: Compatible with dynamic import control
An Explanation of Dynamic EV Charging
Dynamic Exports and Imports refer to signals sent by your local DNSP to indicate the allowable amount of energy you can either send to the grid or import from it. These signals are crucial for protecting grid infrastructure and ensuring that grid assets are well-maintained under varying loads.
Dynamic EV Charging is a smart charging system that communicated with your local DNSP to adjusts power levels in real-time based on grid demand. Dynamic Import Control allows your EV charger to adjust power intake dynamically. This means your charger will priorities solar power and adapt to grid conditions, ensuring efficient and reliable charging. This method allows real-time adjustments, enhanced communication, and user convenience.
In contrast non-compliant EV chargers MUST have a 'Ripple Control' device installed. This limits the DNSP's control to ON and OFF. You lose your ability to supplement your EV charging with Solar and Batteries, because the DNSP has cut the power supply to the charger completely. EV Chargers that do not comply can be shut off without notice, making them unpredictable and this type of charging unreliable.
Optimise Your Energy Usage with CATCH Control
CATCH Control revolutionises home energy management by integrating seamlessly with your solar inverter and OCPP chargers. This advanced system provides real-time data on solar production, energy consumption, and battery status, allowing for precise and efficient control of your home’s energy use.
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