Do you have the Wallbox Power Boost option installed? With that you can enable Eco-Smart and the Wallbox will automatically charge with excess solar power. It works very well.
Not quite sure what you want to use the session duration for, so this may not be an answer for you.
You could run a two automations using âsensor.wallbox_portal_status_descriptionâ as the trigger to start and stop a timer?
Thanks for the suggestion VdR. Actually, my journey started with an energy meter from Wallbox (Carlo Gavazzi EM112) and Eco-Smart. I made a test setup with selectable load and suitable connections to EM112 to simulate a switchboard with Import/Export conditions. I found that my Pulsar Plus would only communicate with EM112 for the first 30 seconds after bootup. There were 13 Tx/Rx transactions in all, which I could observe from the LCD screen of EM112. After that, all communication ceased and would not restart until I rebooted the Pulsar Plus.
The result of this was that I was unable to enter the Power Boost option in My Wallbox App to enable that setting. For some reason, the app thought that there was no energy meter installed, so I couldnât enable Power Boost or Eco-Smart. Neither my local Wallbox distributor nor Wallbox Tech Support were able to help me resolve this issue.
So I returned the EM112 and have a Shelly EM working successfully in my switchboard now. I only got it working today for the first time, so I have more work to do before I can enhance my Node-RED dashboard to enable solar-aware charging. For now, I do it by looking at the sky and the data from my solar power system 
Thanks for the suggestion VdR. Thatâs exactly what I did yesterday and itâs working pretty well. Here is what my Dashboard looks like nowâŚ
Itâs just a simple design, but gets the job done and works reliably. Once I have the Solar Power data connected to HA, I will be able to enhance it further.
Sorry to hear that didnât work for you. My setup with the EM112 seems to work very well. I mostly need it ti protect the main fuse (50A). I have tested the Eco-Smart and it works well. But, i do not use it, I have have net metering over the year, so I do not need to care.
This is my dashboard now. Ignore the calculated charge power, I was experimenting for a temporary solution now that the reporting from Wallbox does not work. Note that the battery is virtual. I have net metering and keep track how much I have actually stored on the grid for later (free) use. As you can see the maximum this year has been 132 kWh, that is why I do not believe in the economics of a 10 kWh home battery âŚ
Net metering over the Year! How wonderful that would be. We donât even have net metering between phases. We can export on one phase and be paid 8c per kWh whilst buying @ 36c per kWh on another phase. Hence the reason why a battery makes so much sense for us. We have 12kWh of Pylontech LiFePO.
Our charts and statistics for solar power look very different to yours. Here is the one I use most as an exampleâŚ
There is a chart with many data points collected every minute, daily, weekly and monthly statistics with comparisons between this year and last year but I wonât clutter up the page any more.
That is a cool looking chart.
Net metering over the year, only because they are way behind installing connected meters. Good for us.
Here is another snippet, this from the solar system. All numbers at zero, itâs the middle of the night.
The coolest part is Yield (YTD) in percent. I have taken the theoretical yield (based on the sun hours history of the geography provided by the electricity company) per day and created a cumulative curve from 1 Jan to 31 Dec from that. Now I can see how Iâm doing against that curve. This year so far very good, 121%! Last year 102%, year before that 111%.
Your Yield figures are very cool indeed! 121% against theoretical is excellent.
Here is a snapshot showing my yield after the first 2 yearsâŚ
The company who installed my system estimated I would get 10,000 kWh per year. As you can see, they were pretty much right on point. I make a snapshot every year, just to keep track of how Iâm going.
It is disappointing that Wallbox takes so much time to fix the Charging power reporting bug. Must not be high on their priority list.
But Iâm also finding that the reported power (when it works) does not seem to be correct.
It reports a constant 7.4 kW, but when I calculate the average power from the added energy trace it is only about 6.5 kW. That 6.5 kW is much more realistic, considering the 32A limit and the actual mains voltage. See traces of yesterdayâs Fiat 500e charge below.
Note that the mains voltage shown here is measured at the meter, with the Wallbox about 40m away from the meter (10 mm2 cable) the voltage there is bound to be even lower.
Interesting to know that youâve also noticed the inaccuracy in Pulsar Plus meter readings. In my case, it reads consistently lowâŚ
- Voltage readings about 6.3% less than the meter supplied with my solar power system
- Power readings about 12% less than my calibrated utility meter
Energy readings from my solar power system correspond very closely with my utility meter (which is what I pay for), so I have no reason to doubt them. It seems that Wallbox donât calibrate their energy meters at all, otherwise our results would be much more consistent with each other. What is really interesting is that my Pulsar reads too low and yours is too high.
I have a simple formula I use when charging my Nissan Leaf 40kWhâŚ
% charge gained = Pulsar kWh x 3.3
This has been proven over many charging sessions and it never seems to change significantly. I guess, as the battery ages, I may notice that the same kWh produces more % charge, but of course the km driven will reduce accordingly. Itâs a simple formula I keep in mind when checking on charging progress, so it doesnât bother me that the actual kWh is significantly more than indicated by Pulsar.
Now Iâm using this integration, I donât have access to the Voltage from Pulsar any more. However, it was a standard function of OCPP and it worked reliably, if somewhat inaccurately. Probably no great loss as I have several other ways to read the line voltage including Shelly EM, my solar power system, UPS and utility meter. All other voltage readings are quite close to each other with Pulsar the outlier.
On your voltage graph, the extra volt drop caused by charging is clearly seen. I found that my Pulsar voltage wasnât much affected by charging current although in my case, it only ranges between 6 and 16 Amps. A lot less than the 32 Amps your Fiat 500e can handle. My Pulsar Plus is also located much closer to the meter box - only about 7 or 8 metres away.
As you say, the Charging Power reporting bug has been present for a long time - I think for at least a year. Very disappointing that Wallbox cannot fix it more quickly.
I too calculate % SoC gained from the reported charge (kWh) added, but now that we have two EVs (Polestar 2, Fiat 500e) that does not work anymore (the multiplier is very different). Iâm looking for a way to determine which vehicle is charging.
Oh, having 2 very different EVs would make things interesting. Maybe put an RFID tag on each car and have some sort of antenna panel to read the tags? Or do you have access via a Fiat or Polestar app which lets you determine if that vehicle is being charged?
Perhaps you can detect a signature for each car, either in the timing or the current at the beginning of charging.
I have been thinking in that direction. Only thing I could think of; I could limit the charge current on one of the cars, and I could detect that. But, that would require for the reported charging power from the Wallbox to work properly and it would slow down charging of the one car. Not ideal.
Both cars have an app, but no API. There are no integrations for Homeassistant (yet).
Itâs unfortunate the firmware has yet to be fixed so you can get useful data. Iâm still shopping for EVSE, and Wallbox has been on my shortlist, primarily because of this integration.
Is anyone using Google WiFi and having the issue with intermittent charging power? I canât believe this issue is that widespread and not being fixed! I had my Pulsar Plus replaced with a Commander 2 so itâs connected with Ethernet but still have the Charging Power issue. It still uses WiFi between pucks.
Wallbox provides good access to Session Data, so you know what the total kWh was per session, once the car is unplugged.
Iâve just installed a Shelly EM in my switchboard, with 2 CTs. It provides updates every second or so, and lets me keep track of the charging power on the separate circuit where the Pulsar Plus is connected. Shelly EM is cheap at about 50 Euros and it integrates to HA very easily. So thereâs more than one way to read the charging power without relying on Wallbox.
From past experience, donât expect bugs to be fixed anytime soon, but they will be fixed eventually. The latest firmware v5.7.18 has finally fixed a long-standing issue with WiFi connectivity, which was a problem for over a year!
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