How To Get Solar Charging For Your EV - Explained
Electric vehicles are gaining ground in the Indian market. From budget commuters to performance-oriented products, EVs now span different segments and price points. Even today, many people view electric vehicles as cost-effective mobility solutions. For them to make financial sense, EVs should be charged mostly at home. If you’re to charge them at DC charging stations, the cost per unit will be significantly higher than what you’d incur at home. This can obviously make your electricity bills shoot up. Many resorted to implementing solar charging at their homes to cover these costs and electricity bills. A video shared on YouTube recently explains the right way to set-up solar charging for an EV.
In the video, one of the hosts mentions that for any person whose electricity bills are in the range of Rs 5000-6000 and is wishing to add an EV to the household, installing the right solar charging setup can bring them down to zero.
Installing a 3kW solar charging setup will suffice for household needs. Another 3kW setup will cover the EV’s charging costs. This means that a solar setup with 6kW capacity is what is needed in such cases.
He then explains this in detail. The Tata Nexon EV is taken as the base for this math. This electric SUV is offered with two battery packs- 30kWh and 45 kWh. Let’s take the case of the medium range (standard) version. 1kWh equates to 1 unit. This means that 30 units of electricity is needed to charge the EV completely.
Let’s assume that this EV is driven for 100-odd kilometers per day and is used for 25 days a month. The total distance covered during a month is then 2500 km. The 30 kWh version has a real-world range of around 250 km. This means that the EV will have to be charged 10 times a month (2500/ 250).
This will consume 300 additional units of electricity every month. In other words, 10 additional units have to be generated daily to compensate for this. A 2.5- 3kW solar panel will be required for this. The solar charging setup in this case should have a capacity of 6 kW.
The video further details a smart installation strategy for people who are budget-bound. If you are someone who is building a new house, but hasn’t decided on getting an EV yet (but could do it later), there’s a smart way to future-proof your solar charging setup. He says that in such cases, the user should get an inverter that can accommodate additional loads such as EVs.
In cases such as the one mentioned above, the buyer can get a 5kW or 6 kW inverter. Since he isn’t having additional loads such as electric cars initially, he can opt for smaller capacity panels.
This smart move can save up to Rs 25,000. In the future, when the EV arrives, additional solar panels can be added to the system, without making changes to the existing system or the inverter unit.
When choosing inverter, always make sure to select the ones with two MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) points. These regulate the charge of the battery bank. Having multiple MPPTs will allow you to add more solar panels in the future and increase the capacity.