Sunplug
Setup guides → OCPP chargers
Any OCPP charger
OCPP is an open standard that nearly every serious wallbox already speaks. Point yours at Sunplug and the charging rate is set at the socket — which means it works with any car ever made, including the ones whose manufacturer has no API at all.
Exercised end to end against a charge-point simulator speaking OCPP 1.6J — connection, boot, metering and current limits. No physical wallbox yet.
Read this first
A charger talks to one service at a time. Pointing yours at Sunplug takes it away from its manufacturer's app, and their scheduling, load balancing and access control stop working. If you rely on any of those, decide before you start rather than after.
Also worth checking: if your charger's own app has a solar or eco mode, turn it off. Two systems trying to set the same rate will fight, and the more restrictive one wins — usually not the one you wanted.
Connecting
- In Sunplug: Settings → Equipment → Chargers → Add a wallbox
- You get two strings — a server address and an identity. Copy them.
- In your charger's own app, find its OCPP settings and paste both in.
- Save. Most chargers restart, and appear in Sunplug a minute or two later.
The identity is generated for you rather than chosen, so it is unique and doubles as the link to your account. Do not invent your own.
Where the OCPP settings live
If it will not connect
Sunplug offers a second, unencrypted address behind a "my charger will not connect" button. That looks like a step backwards, and there is a real reason for it: a surprising number of wallboxes ship without the certificates needed to validate a modern encrypted connection, and simply fail with no useful error. A charger that cannot connect is worse than one connected without encryption, and the only thing crossing that link is a charging rate.
Try the encrypted address first. If nothing appears after a few minutes, use the other one.
Setting up your car
Because the charger cannot see inside the car, Sunplug has no state of charge to work with. That means percentage targets do not apply — you get surplus tracking, schedules, boost and blockout windows, but not "charge to 80%".
Most chargers also need to be set to start charging on their own — "free charging", "autostart", or an RFID tag swipe, depending on the brand. Sunplug then varies the rate of a session that has already begun.
The 6 A floor
The standard sets a minimum of 6 A per phase, about 1.4 kW on single phase. There is no valid setting between zero and six, so below that Sunplug pauses rather than trickling. This is also why it waits several minutes before stopping and longer before restarting — every cycle operates a physical contactor inside your charger, and those have a finite life.
When it does not work
The charger never appears
Check for a trailing slash or a stray space in the address — pasting into a phone keyboard adds them more often than you would think. Then check the identity matches exactly, including case.
It appears, but the rate never changes
Some chargers do not support the smart-charging part of the standard, only the on-off part. Sunplug detects this when the charger connects and says so rather than appearing to work. If you see that message, your wallbox can be switched with the sun but not modulated.
It connects and then drops out
Usually an idle timeout somewhere between your charger and Sunplug. Sunplug asks every charger to send a keepalive when it connects, which fixes most cases automatically. Persistent drops are worth reporting.
It charges at full rate regardless
The charger accepted the limit but is not applying it — some firmware acknowledges a setting it does not honour. Sunplug reads back what the charger says it is offering, so this shows up on the equipment page rather than silently costing you money.
Driving a Tesla? You may not need any of this — Sunplug talks to the car directly.