Schedule a charging station's power (charging plan)
A charging plan sets the maximum power a connector can deliver, slot by slot. For example, it lets you keep full power for off-peak hours, or switch a charging station off during the day and back on in the evening.
The plan is sent to the charging station over the OCPP protocol: the charging station applies it itself, even if it later loses its connection to the supervision.
Not to be confused with availability. Making a connector unavailable (see Charging station management) blocks it entirely, with no schedule, for example during maintenance. To vary the power by time of day, you need a charging plan.
Before you start
- The charging station must be connected. When it is offline, the window shows “The charging station is not connected to the server” and the plan cannot be changed.
- The charging station must not be driven by Smart Charging. If its site area has Smart Charging enabled, the window shows “The charging plans are now managed by the smart charging” and the fields are greyed out: Smart Charging computes the plans. To schedule the charging station by hand, first exclude it from Smart Charging (the charging station's Exclude from Smart Charging setting).
- One plan per connector. A charging station with two connectors needs two plans, one per connector.
Open a charging station's charging plans
- Open the Charging Stations menu and find the charging station.
- On its row, click the Charge Limitation icon (the speedometer).
- The Charging Plans window opens on the Charging Plan tab.
Choose the plan type
First choose the Connector, then the Type:
| Type | Use | Maximum duration |
|---|---|---|
| Temporary Planning | A one-off limitation, on specific dates, that does not repeat | — |
| Daily Planning | The same program, repeated every day | 24 hours |
| Weekly recurring | A one-week program, repeated every week (for example: different at the weekend) | 1 week |
A daily or weekly plan repeats from the time in the Start field: that time sets when the program starts again every day, or every week.
Watch out with weekly plans: slots apply to specific days of the week. A slot entered from Saturday 05:00 to Saturday 20:00 only applies on Saturdays. For the same program every day, choose daily planning.
Enter the slots
- Set the Start: date and time of the first slot.
- Click Add: a one-hour slot appears, at the connector's maximum power.
- Set its End and its Limit with the slider (all the way left: 0 kW, the charging station delivers nothing).
- Click Add again for the next slot: it starts where the previous one ends.
The chart on the right shows the result: the connector's limit in purple, the plan's in red.
The Priority (stackLevel) field is prefilled with the connector number; keep that value. If the window reports “Levels already used by the other plans of this charger”, reusing one of those levels would replace the matching plan.
Example: full power at night only, every day
Goal: the charging station delivers full power from 8 pm to 5 am, and nothing (0 W) from 5 am to 8 pm, every day.
- Type: Daily Planning.
- Start: the next day at 05:00.
- First slot: from 05:00 to 20:00, limit 0 kW.
- Second slot: from 20:00 to 05:00 the next day, limit at full power (the default value).
The plan thus covers the 24 hours of the day, and repeats every day at 5 am.
Repeat for each connector of the charging station.
Apply the plan
Click Apply the plan, then confirm. The plan is saved and sent to the charging station; the message “Charging profiles for '…' have been applied successfully” confirms that the charging station accepted it.
The Apply the plan button stays greyed out as long as nothing has changed: when you reopen the window, you see the plan already saved for the selected connector.
If the plan is refused
- “The plan must not go beyond 24 hours” (or “1 week”): the end of the last slot exceeds the maximum duration of the chosen type. Shorten the last slot.
- Clock change: the night the clocks go back to winter time lasts one hour longer. A 24-hour daily plan covering that night lasts 25 hours, and is refused. Choose a start after the clock change.
- “The profile has not been accepted by the charging station”: the charging station refused the plan. Some models do not support charging plans, or limit the accepted priority level (the Priority field then shows the maximum).
Delete a plan
- Delete this plan removes the plan of the selected connector, on the charging station and in the supervision.
- Clear all the plans of the charging station sends the charging station a command that clears all its plans, for all connectors, even those the supervision does not know about.
The connector is then no longer limited by a charging plan.
