Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang...

SpaceEVDriver

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The crew is installing our solar system today. I will likely add additional panels and batteries over the next few years.
I've been wanting to do this for about 20 years and have finally saved up enough to afford both the electric car and the electric power plant.
We will have about 7 hours of usable Arizona sun per day (winter and summer both, see attached image).
The attached image, taken from the roof, facing south shows:
  • The path of the Sun during the summer solstice (top, orange line).
  • The path of the Sun during the winter solstice (bottom, green line).
  • The path of the Sun during the vernal and autumnal equinoxes (central, blue line).
  • The analemma for the hours between 06:00 and 19:00.
    • The analemma is the curve that connects the location of the Sun for a constant time throughout the year. That is, if I were to take a photo every day at precisely 12:00, from the same spot and looking the same direction as when I took the photo in this image, the Sun would fall on that on the line labeled "12:00". You may have seen these in various astronomy photography albums.
    • This is useful to know what time of day the Sun may be eclipsed by a tree or other obstruction. At 15:00 time the roof is unshaded in the summer but shaded in the winter.
Specs:
  • 8.2 kW of panels
  • 20 kWh of battery backup (AGM, not LiFePO4, but costs are ridiculous for LiFePO4)
  • 12 kW hybrid inverter with 2 AC outputs (one back to the grid and one to protected circuits), and includes a generator input

Anyway, I'm a geek about this stuff and am pretty darn excited.

271446224_1758589887664396_1825149832991744210_n.jpg
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JackS

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Have had a 5.67 KWp system installed since Jan 20 2019 and have been using it for my house and with my wife's Leaf. My MME should be in this month. It is getting exciting.
I am thinking of RUNONSUN for a custom plate.
More importantly how did you make that picture you showed?
 
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SpaceEVDriver

SpaceEVDriver

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I am thinking of RUNONSUN for a custom plate.
I love it!!! :)
More importantly how did you make that picture you showed?
I took a 360-degree photo with my phone starting facing directly north (compass corrected for magnetic vs true).
Then I wrote some Python code to plot the solar path information onto the image. I used an existing library for some of the solar path guts but had to make some modifications to work for my purposes.

Let me see if I can find the name of the library...
 

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Way cool.....
 

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Congrats on the solar. An added contribution to cleaner living. Our house came with solar, and that’s what prompted me to look at e-cars. in the summer we were giving so much to the grid we thought, “why not use it instead of adding car pollution to the planet?“

years back when looking at 10 mpg Motorhomes, it made me realize dumping a gallon of gas into the atmosphere every ten miles was foolish and selfish.

I am so happy to have solar. It’s fairly hot here in the summer and we have no AC bills, and until this year much of it went to PGand E This winter has been very cloudy so we don’t have as much in excess solar. But soon will when our short winter moves on. So for 7 months of the year we have free car charging.
 


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SpaceEVDriver

SpaceEVDriver

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Congrats on the solar. An added contribution to cleaner living. Our house came with solar, and that’s what prompted me to look at e-cars. in the summer we were giving so much to the grid we thought, “why not use it instead of adding car pollution to the planet?“

years back when looking at 10 mpg Motorhomes, it made me realize dumping a gallon of gas into the atmosphere every ten miles was foolish and selfish.

I am so happy to have solar. It’s fairly hot here in the summer and we have no AC bills, and until this year much of it went to PGand E This winter has been very cloudy so we don’t have as much in excess solar. But soon will when our short winter moves on. So for 7 months of the year we have free car charging.
I grew up off-grid entirely. Windmill to draw water, wood for heating, kerosene lanterns for light, etc. I think I was about 12 when I convinced my dad to buy a solar panel so we could listen to a car radio in the house...

I really want to swap my Tacoma for the F-150 Lightning, but I'm afraid it's about 100 miles too short on range right now. :/
 

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I just had a 16kwh system installed with a 14 kw battery. Just need the Mach-E to show up and complete everything. I ordered in June and got the palsapp delivery confirmation 3 days ago. 2-3 weeks to go. Fingers crossed. I am very excited about pairing a solar system with this car.
 

DE-MME

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We have had solar for almost 6 years now. 12.4 kW system (51 panels, I think 220W each). With an energy efficient house, we have been sending more back to the grid than we use, prompted us to buy a Chevy Bolt in 2017. Even with the Bolt (and all the lawn equipment being electric), we still produced more than we consumed.

We are now buying a Ford Marc E to use up the rest of what we produce :)

We have been happy with the Bolt, it's the most fun-to-drive car we have ever owned (we're on 15+ cars from many makes, including 7 Subarus)

I should mention, we are in Delaware (Lewes, the 1st Town in the 1st State), our Solar orientation is about 92%.

Let me add: Solar power is not for everyone, but: Our ROI is ~ 16%, payback in
less than 6 years. Yes, we had to take out a loan to pay cash, but that is much better than paying for the financing the installers offered: We would pay significantly more over time for all of the financing options we were presented with.

I should add - If it saves us $$, we pay cash. we HATE paying interest.
 
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I just had a 16kwh system installed with a 14 kw battery. Just need the Mach-E to show up and complete everything. I ordered in June and got the palsapp delivery confirmation 3 days ago. 2-3 weeks to go. Fingers crossed. I am very excited about pairing a solar system with this car.
I wanted to go up to about 12-16 kw panels, but our budget just won't support that right now. I'll have to add panels a few at a time to get up to where I want to be.
 
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SpaceEVDriver

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We have had solar for almost 6 years now. 12.4 kW system (51 panels, I think 220W each).
I'm hoping to get up to 12 to 16 eventually, but we have some trees (as you can see in the image above), so we'll probably stall out at about 12.

I should mention, we are in Delaware (Lewes, the 1st Town in the 1st State), our Solar orientation is about 92%.
That's awesome! I think our orientation is a bit less perfect than I would like, but that can be fixed relatively easily. At least I think it can be. I'll have to climb up on the roof this weekend to evaluate everything.

Let me add: Solar power is not for everyone, but: Our ROI is ~ 16%, payback in
less than 6 years. Yes, we had to take out a loan to pay cash, but that is much better than paying for the financing the installers offered: We would pay significantly more over time for all of the financing options we were presented with.
We faced a similar issue with payment. None of the financing options make sense and most seem incredibly unethical (perpetual lease of a solar system?!).

We tend to throw our cash into a mutual fund, take out a loan to pay for the purchase, and pocket the difference between the earned rate on the mutual fund and the loan's interest rate (it's been working well since 2009). In this case, we saved up until we could pay cash because none of the other options around here make sense.
 

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I have had a system on the house since 2012. We were over-producing so much after my dad passed that I bought my Fusion Energi. Still was over-producing on annual basis. even after my brother bought his Fusion Energi we were over-producing. I have to get a bead on how it is after a few months with the MME. ?‍♂?

I guess I should look into storage batteries too. ??
 

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The crew is installing our solar system today. I will likely add additional panels and batteries over the next few years.
I've been wanting to do this for about 20 years and have finally saved up enough to afford both the electric car and the electric power plant.
We will have about 7 hours of usable Arizona sun per day (winter and summer both, see attached image).
The attached image, taken from the roof, facing south shows:
  • The path of the Sun during the summer solstice (top, orange line).
  • The path of the Sun during the winter solstice (bottom, green line).
  • The path of the Sun during the vernal and autumnal equinoxes (central, blue line).
  • The analemma for the hours between 06:00 and 19:00.
    • The analemma is the curve that connects the location of the Sun for a constant time throughout the year. That is, if I were to take a photo every day at precisely 12:00, from the same spot and looking the same direction as when I took the photo in this image, the Sun would fall on that on the line labeled "12:00". You may have seen these in various astronomy photography albums.
    • This is useful to know what time of day the Sun may be eclipsed by a tree or other obstruction. At 15:00 time the roof is unshaded in the summer but shaded in the winter.
Specs:
  • 8.2 kW of panels
  • 20 kWh of battery backup (AGM, not LiFePO4, but costs are ridiculous for LiFePO4)
  • 12 kW hybrid inverter with 2 AC outputs (one back to the grid and one to protected circuits), and includes a generator input

Anyway, I'm a geek about this stuff and am pretty darn excited.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... 271446224_1758589887664396_1825149832991744210_n
We’ve had a pve plus battery system for 3 years now. We’re effectively off grid and able to charge the Mach-e in addition to running the house. The grid is our backup.

Welcome to the club.
 
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SpaceEVDriver

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I guess I should look into storage batteries too. ??
I kind of "need" a battery backup. My entire business depends on my computer systems and I often have weeks-long modeling or processing runs that I can't afford to have just crash in the middle of a power outage.

But, I would want one anyway: we recently removed our wood-burning fireplace for safety and health issues, so we need electricity for heat.
 

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The crew is installing our solar system today. I will likely add additional panels and batteries over the next few years.
I've been wanting to do this for about 20 years and have finally saved up enough to afford both the electric car and the electric power plant.
We will have about 7 hours of usable Arizona sun per day (winter and summer both, see attached image).
The attached image, taken from the roof, facing south shows:
  • The path of the Sun during the summer solstice (top, orange line).
  • The path of the Sun during the winter solstice (bottom, green line).
  • The path of the Sun during the vernal and autumnal equinoxes (central, blue line).
  • The analemma for the hours between 06:00 and 19:00.
    • The analemma is the curve that connects the location of the Sun for a constant time throughout the year. That is, if I were to take a photo every day at precisely 12:00, from the same spot and looking the same direction as when I took the photo in this image, the Sun would fall on that on the line labeled "12:00". You may have seen these in various astronomy photography albums.
    • This is useful to know what time of day the Sun may be eclipsed by a tree or other obstruction. At 15:00 time the roof is unshaded in the summer but shaded in the winter.
Specs:
  • 8.2 kW of panels
  • 20 kWh of battery backup (AGM, not LiFePO4, but costs are ridiculous for LiFePO4)
  • 12 kW hybrid inverter with 2 AC outputs (one back to the grid and one to protected circuits), and includes a generator input

Anyway, I'm a geek about this stuff and am pretty darn excited.

271446224_1758589887664396_1825149832991744210_n.jpg
This sounds fantastic; congrats!

Just wanted to chime in and say that your 20kWh of AGM is really 10kWh at best, since you can't/shouldn't drain it below 30-40% (even for deep cycle ones), and the internal resistance of AGM means you can't really pull a lot of power because the voltage will sag too much. I know LiFePo4 sounds really expensive right now, but I think you'll be happier with a smaller LiFePo4 bank now than a "large" AGM one.

But, everyone's needs are different, and I'm sure you'll be very happy with your setup either way :)
 
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