Amber has acquired Charge HQ, in a move that could reduce the stress levels of customers trying to charge their EVs under the energy retailer’s volatile wholesale market billing system.
Charge HQ is the developer of a cloud-based smart EV charging app that Amber claims will give their customers more control.
“Charge HQ’s technology is a fantastic addition to Amber’s offering, giving EV owners the ability to charge their vehicles in a way that maximises renewable energy use while also cutting costs,” said Amber co-CEO Chris Thompson in a statement.
The Wholesale Market Rollercoaster
Amber grants customers access to real-time wholesale electricity prices so they can cash in on low prices, as signified by the company’s 50-metre-high inflatable tube person, which soars up over the company’s hometown of Melbourne when cheap renewables flood the grid.
The flipside of this system is that customers get stung when wholesale prices spike, although the company does have some protections in place when this happens.
SolarQuotes Head of Marketing Jono Wedge — an Amber customer and EV owner — hopes the development will reduce the stress of living at the mercy of wholesale prices.
“The potential for Amber to automate EV charging for maximum savings is very welcome, as having to manually check pricing and turn my charger on/off is laborious,” he said.
“Especially in the winter months, when prices can be volatile, being able to plug in my car knowing it’s ‘set and forget’ would be a load off my mind.”
Jono will be making sure the home EV charger he installs is Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) compliant — most OCPP chargers are compatible with Charge HQ’s platform.
The Power To Choose When You Charge
Charge HQ’s cloud-based system is capable of integrating solar inverters, wall chargers, and EVs to charge at home while using existing hardware, regardless of the brand.
The technology gives people the ability to selectively charge when prices are cheap, as well as other considerations such as only charging on renewable energy.
“Joining Amber means we can bring smarter, more advanced energy solutions to even more Australians,” said Charge HQ co-founder Jay Banner. “We believe that Amber will be a great home for Charge HQ due to the strong alignment in company mission and focus on building great products for customers.”
Charge HQ last year faced an uncertain future as the company grappled with a number of challenges, including Amber developing its own in-house EV charging technology platform Amber for EVs, which launched late last year.
A spokesperson for Amber told SolarQuotes: “Currently compatible with Tesla Model Y and Model 3, and post-2021 Model S and X Teslas, the Amber for EV in-house tech provides customers with the ability to charge from excess solar without additional charging equipment and to automate charging around the cheapest times in the grid.”
The spokesperson added: “Amber for EVs isn’t going anywhere with the acquisition of Charge HQ. Instead, bringing Charge HQ into the Amber family allows us to immediately provide optimised EV charging to a wider range of Amber customers, given that Charge HQ is currently compatible with most OCPP chargers. Charge HQ is also still available to non-Amber customers who want to optimise their EV charging.”
The Amber for EVs platform graduated to beta testing in September last year, but the company has not clarified how the acquisition of Charge HQ relates to their in-house project.
Amber, founded in 2017, faced their own challenges last year, with customers who owned Tesla Powerwalls suffering widespread technical issues when using Amber’s SmartShift app.
Amber claimed the acquisition of Charge HQ additionally supports the smart energy retailer’s continued work in the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) space.
The company has previously said its smart EV charging is the first step in its Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)-backed program to develop a V2G solution for compatible EVs.
If you want to learn more about charging your own EV (or the EV you’re thinking about getting), take a look at our comprehensive EV charging 101 guide.
About Max Opray
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Thanks Max. Interesting.
Amber have also had a program in which it provides the EVSE [Zappi], customer pays for install. I believe this is limited to first 100 customers who apply.
I signed up for this but am waiting for my expectations to be confirmed by Amber and the designated installer as follows. These might be useful to others reading this who have or thinking of signing up for it too. And perhaps Charge HQ will play a part in ensuring these expectations are met.
I have a Sungrow hybrid inverter and battery, btw.
to be able to continue to monitor in Isolarcloud:
– amount of pv power being generated
– state of charge of house battery
– amount of energy being consumed by household,
— from solar [including to Zappi]
— from battery
— from grid [including to Zappi]
– amount of pv energy [or grid if force charging] charging house battery
– amount being exported to grid.
Even if the Zappi app is capable, I don’t envisage using it to monitor anything other than the charge of the EV.
I expect the Amber Smartshift technology to work 100% including curtailment and auto discharging when FiT is favourable.
Importantly, I understand that in some circumstances, the amount shown in Isolarcloud app as being being exported to grid can include what is being consumed by EVSE.
I don’t expect that to be the case here.
On the contrary, the “flip side” is when you make all the money (if you have a house battery). When the supply tariff hits $20 per kWh the feed in tariff is not far behind ($19 per kWh is a great price to sell your battery energy). So as Amber customers with batteries rub our hands together when the prices hit the roof.
However not all batteries are supported by Amber. Usually because the battery manufacturer doesn’t want Amber into their VPP market.
So if you want to use the Amber smartshift technology check your battery is supported.
If you’re like me and have a Sonnen battery that is fully manageable on your local network but Sonnen won’t let Amber manage remotely then you can develop your own management system and even get that system to manage charging the car and running the pool pump and aircon and hot water and whatever else is a big electricity consumer in your home. But it can be complicated to set up.
I’ve been running my own system built on Home Assistant and EMHASS open source software for nearly two years and haven’t paid for electricity since. In fact I’m in credit all the time even though I charge my car at home all the time. (Probably about 10,000km PA at home for free and 5,000 at fast chargers when on road trips)
This is great news for those of us who are happy ChargeHQ customers! I’m not sure why Amber didn’t do this in the first place but at least they’ve done it now. It also secures ChargeHQ’s future with the impending change from Tesla who look likely to start charging for API access. As long as Amber maintain the broad range of devices supported by ChargeHQ then everyone should be happy. It will also be interesting to see what incentives Amber offer to ChargeHQ customers who are currently with other energy retailers.
No mention of impacts for existing Charge HQ subscribers. I’m in regional QLD and depend on Charge HQ to manage my EV charging.
I don’t know how the Eastern States’ electricity prices compare, but here in South Australia, you would be an idiot to go with Amber! Mind you all the retailers are coming around to almost the same plans. It smells of collusion.
Electricity export prices are falling, most are at 4 cents now and I expect a further drop. We looked at getting an EV, but with all the uncertainty and BS talk, our next car will be a tiny Korean or Japanese petrol car.
Not sure what uncertainty and BS you are talking about but I own an EV and would never consider buying another petrol car. I think anyone buying a small petrol car these days are bonkers.