Solar Panel Systems and Electric Vehicles: Can home solar panels be used to charge an EV?

Can home solar panels be used to charge an Electric Vehicle?

Introduction:

Many of our customers started the process of looking into solar after purchasing an electric vehicle. When a homeowner charges their home and vehicle with solar, they are truly living an emissions-free lifestyle.

As the price of solar has dropped and the number of electric vehicles on the road has increased, it now makes environmental sense and financial sense to use solar to charge an EV. If you already have solar but want to add to your system to offset your new EV or want to install a solar system to cover an Electric Vehicle you are thinking about purchasing in the future Alchemy Solar wants to make sure you have the information you need to get the right solar energy system for your needs.

Can a home's solar panels be used to charge electric cars?

Like any other electrical usage in a home, solar energy can be used to supply an electric vehicle with the needed electricity. The most crucial factor to focus on is making sure that the solar panel system can offset the power demand for electric vehicles or plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Solar electric car chargers: how much energy do you need for your EV?

When deciding on what sized solar system to install at a home, it is essential to understand the home's fill electrical usage. When making this calculation, it is vital to identify how much electricity an EV will use in the future.

The first piece of information to look at when figuring this out is identifying an electric car's mileage rating. Because EV's do not utilize gasoline, the EPA utilizes a calculation of how many kilowatt-hours (hWh) it takes for an EV to drive 100 miles, converted to "miles-per-gallon equivalent" (MPGe). An auto dealership usually provides this information, but the information for every EV available in the United States can also be found at FuelEconomy.gov.

After a homeowner has identified the EPA's fuel economy rating for their vehicle, calculating how much additional solar electricity they will need is relatively easy to calculate.

Example of how solar can be used to charge an EV:

Let's take a look at a real-world example: the 2020 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range, one of the most popular all-electric vehicles, according to FuelEconomy.gov, has a combined fuel economy rating 24 kWh/100 miles. Again that means that Model 3 will need 24 kWh of electricity to drive 100 miles. If a homeowner drives 25 miles on an average day, they will be using roughly 6 kWh of electricity per day or around 2190 kWh across the entire year. This is the amount of additional electricity that a homeowner would need to charge their EV with electricity from their solar panel system.

Once a homeowner has this information, they can work with Alchemy Solar to design the right solar energy system to produce enough power to cover both the home and the EV's electrical needs. At Alchemy Solar, we can help solar design systems with electrical car chargers built-in future-proof systems that can easily be expanded to meet your future car chagrining needs or an oversized system so that you are ready when you drive your new electric vehicle home.

Alchemy Solar knows that every homeowner will have different needs if you would like to find out more about how a solar energy system can be used to charge an Electric Vehicle, please schedule a free consultation today.