How does Solar Smart Charging work?
Solar Smart Charging is a purely software-based solution. You don’t need any additional hardware to use Solar Smart Charging, and it works with any solar panel installation at home. We use state-of-the-art solar forecasting technology based on a global fleet of weather satellites. This way, everyone can use it, regardless of their specific solar panel setup.
tado° predicts how much power your solar panels will produce based on your charge location and the details of your PV system. Then it determines the cheapest times to charge by calculating the price per kWh based on the tariffs and the solar consumption.
How do I set up Solar Smart Charging?
To set up solar Smart Charging in the tado° app, follow these steps:
Select the cog symbol in the upper right corner of the Smart Charging screen.
Under the Solar Panels section, enter the requested information about your PV installation. Here you can add the following parameters:
Peak power
Direction
Tilt
What is Solar PV peak capacity?
This is the maximum amount of electricity the PV system can produce under ideal conditions, sometimes called 'rated capacity or 'rated output'.
They come pre-loaded with some sensible defaults for you, but tweaking these settings can further increase the forecast accuracy of your Solar output.
What is direction? How do I find it?
This is the direction your solar PV system is pointing. This is important for determining what time of the day the power output from your solar PV system will peak. The numerical values (degrees) for each direction are listed in the image below.
What is Tilt? How do I estimate a useful value? What is it used for?
The tilt of your solar PV system is a measurement of how far your PV panels are from horizontal. If your panels are horizontally installed (lying flat, facing the sky), you have a 0-degree tilt. Conversely, a 90-degree tilt is where the panel would be standing upright, pointing towards the sky.
Most rooftop solar PV systems are positioned at a tilt between 10 and 40 degrees.
You don't need to make an exact measurement of the tilt of your PV system. An estimate to be within 5 degrees should be sufficient for any use case.
Flat-lying or vertically oriented PV panels will produce less power across the day than those that are more moderately tilted.
The optimal tilt for year-round energy generation is latitude tilt, whereby the tilt of the PV system is equal to the absolute value of the latitude where it is located.