EV daily charge (kWh)
How much energy you want to put into your EV each day. Once the simulator has delivered this many kWh to the EV, it stops charging and lets surplus solar export to the grid for revenue instead.
Why a target matters
Without a target the simulator will pour every spare watt of solar into the EV all day — even if your EV only needs a few kWh to top up. That “wastes” solar that could have earned you peak-export revenue. With a target, the simulator fills the EV first (because that’s cheaper electricity than buying from the grid later) and then shifts surplus to grid export when the EV’s full.
Picking a number
A useful starting point is your average daily driving need. As a rough guide, EVs use about 15–20 kWh per 100 km (more for SUVs / utes, less for small hatchbacks). So:
- 20 km/day commute → ~3–4 kWh
- 50 km/day → ~8–10 kWh
- 100 km/day → ~16–20 kWh
- Long-trip top-up to full → up to your battery’s usable capacity (typ. 50–80 kWh)
The target is a daily figure — if you only drive on weekdays you might set it lower for weekends, or leave it constant and let the EV reach 100 % over a few days.
Only home some days? Pick the days
Each plug-in window has seven day buttons. Light the days the car is actually home for that window — a car that drives all week and charges at the weekend might be Overnighton Fri and Sun plus a Custom window from 0 to 24 on Sat and Sun. The line under the windows shows the stretches that makes (“Plugged in Fri 6 pm – Mon 7 am”), so a gap between two windows is easy to spot.
Once you choose days, the ready-by time no longer applies: the car is charged to your target by the time each stretch ends, and Solarprod spreads the charging over the cheapest, sunniest hours in between. “Charge now” is then the charge left after the week’s driving, not after one day’s.
What happens when the target is met
The simulator stops sending solar (and battery surplus) to the EV from that point in the day onward. Surplus solar reverts to the standard Default behaviour: export to grid for revenue at peak prices, curtail during the no-export window. If you’ve also turned on Top up from grid if needed and solar alone won’t hit the target, the simulator imports the balance during the cheapest off-peak hours.
Closes this tab and returns to the calculator.