Charge Smart MA, anyone using successfully?

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skateguy50

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2022
Messages
13
Even if your not from Massachusetts you might be able to help me with my issue.

In theory the ChargeSmartMA app is supposed to track when I charge during offpeak hours at my home and rebate me $0.05 per kwhr I charge. To setup I connected to my National Grid account and allowed the app access to my nissan connect services account.
It is supposed to be able to see when I am charging at home and how much from that but in the 2 weeks since I setup it has only recognized 3 charging cycles, 2 not at home and one at home. In that time I have only charged during non peak hours and driven maybe 500 miles.

So I never did any settings on the car side so after it wasn't getting any information I went through some menus at home and connected the car to wifi and tried to find any setting that would help track what's needed but the app didn't ask for anything other than access to the leaf account. On the my leaf account it seems to track the driving and average miles / kwhr but no list of charge start and end times and start and end capacity.

So I guess the system seems cool but if I can't get it working I'm not sure how to get the discount... they also connect with wifi smart chargers and maybe that would work better, but maybe not.

I honestly have never charged outside the discount times of the program and mostly charge at home, to date this year the app shows I have driven 9,150 miles and used 2653 kWh of energy so should be able to get $132 in credit... so if a "smart" charger costs $600 It would take me driving another 40,000ish miles just to break even... so maybe before then I can get the current system to work.

I send several emails and pictures of my car before and after charging and the app not recognizing they charging cycles but so far no responses...

Hoping someone here has also signed up and is using the plug that came with the car to charge from home.
 
I signed up for that Charge Smart MA program back in April, but found out that I'm not eligible for it.

After not finding my EV trim (S) & battery size in the app, I contacted the company via the app with followups via email. They replied within a day. Their return email address was [email protected] from National Grid. I sent them screenshots and explained the EV and battery that I had. They checked with their engineers and told me I that I'm not eligible for the program because my S trim is not eligible (i.e., does not communicate with Nissan Connect), and also said that I would need the ChargePoint HomeFlex EVSE to enroll in the program.

It's too bad that they their enrollment is limited to specific EVs or EVSE only. Hopefully they will expand it in the future.
 
I suspect that the issue the OP is experiencing is related to the unreliability of Nissan Connect. The servers are often down or laggy, and it's thus possible if not likely that the utility is unable to get the data they need from them in a timely, reliable fashion...
 
In Vermont, using Green Mountain Power, Nissan Connect is not used or necessary simply make sure that the EVSE is connected to wifi and talking with the utility company. We have an S trim also, the garage is far enough away from the router that I need a booster in between but with that it works well.
 
Perhaps OVMS would work instead of Nissan Connect. It is a lot cheaper than a new Smart Wi-Fi EVSE and it has the additional most excellent benefit of letting the car owner set charge limits lower than 100%
 
I have a 2014 Leaf SV in central MA (my wife's car) and we received a mailer about the ChargeSmart program. She mostly charges (for free!) at her work, but when we do charge at home we do it during the off-peak period.

She looked into it more and concluded that we can't participate as we use the OEM EVSE for home charging and thus have no way to communicate or document home charging times or amounts. If anyone knows different I would be interested to know what we should do, but it's my understanding that a 2014 Leaf can no longer communicate with Nissan because of the 3G shutdown, and our charger is also "dumb" so I think we're completely out of luck.
 
As best as I can tell, the LEAF is not eligible itself for either of the MA programs: Charge Smart or ConnectedSolutions EV/PHEV Program. It does look like you can enroll a LEAF it if you have a supported WiFi-connected EVSE.

You can only be enrolled in one; I'm in the later. But only 1 of my cars; they don't have a way to let you have 2 cars enrolled. :roll:
 
Looking at the 2 options, the Mass system is incredibly clunky, and why TF is the Leaf not included? Every BEV should qualify. As simple as possible to do what Vermont does: provide free of charge a wifi-enabled EVSE to hook up to the power company, get $.06/kWh rebate for all power consumed by that EVSE during off-peak hours. No exclusive list of vehicles which qualify, although there is a way to complain in one of the Mass programs (as if THAT is gonna help....)
 
dmacarthur said:
Looking at the 2 options, the Mass system is incredibly clunky, and why TF is the Leaf not included?

The MA Charge Smart program web site does not show you the complete list of compatible vehicles. You get to see the complete list via the program's app. The app indicates that you can send feedback if you don't see your vehicle listed; that's how I contacted them about mine.
 
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