Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang...

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I have the Sol Ark 12k. It is pretty awesome. I could tell by your description exactly what it is. I do not have my solar connected to it. I had solar installed with micro-inverters before my battery. I am AC-coupled. My solar is landed on a sub-panel. I moved most of my house to the sub-panel, and the Load portion of the 12k feeds my panel from the battery.

You will like it. Lots to play around with.
Nice setup.

I'm a data nerd, so I'm pretty excited to see what this can do. I know I'm going to have to wait until the power company gives the final okay, so I probably shouldn't be getting myself too excited right now (much like the fact that I won't have the Mustang for another couple of months), but I can't help myself. :)
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We installed a 10kw system about a year ago and just added the Mach E to our garage. Thrilled to be driving solar powered miles! Have not charged at a public charger yet.
Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... IMG_3644
 

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We've had our solar system for about 10 years. It's a 9.2 kw system. We usually put back power at this time of year but noticed since getting the mache that we are now using more which is to be expected. The power generation has been going down over the years which is normal. We also live be a dirt road so the panels get dirty when we have long dry spells. With 5 adults living in our house, we use quite a bit of electricity!
 

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We have a 7.5 kw system that produces a peak of 51 kWh daily in summer and a low of 29 kWh in winter. I charge up once a week to 95% on one of my days off (whichever is sunnier) with our pool equipment turned off, and have yet to use a public charger. I'm not tech savvy enough to know what percentage of the charge is coming from the solar panels, but I'm confident it is very high.
We live in an area with a very high percentage of clear sunny days so I feel this setup is a no-brainer and well worth the investment. A Tesla battery provides our nighttime electricity needs and ensures we are not affected by grid power outages.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... 1641603959027
 

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I believe I used pvlib for the main API for plotting the solar location.
https://pvlib-python.readthedocs.io/en/stable/auto_examples/plot_sunpath_diagrams.html
Thanks for the link.
I can imagine an app that would use your phone and step you through plotting the solar location on a picture of your sky area. The phone has location and time and could align the plot over the picture since the sun would be in the picture when and where you look it. You could use that to line it up.
Maybe solar installers could use it to sell solar or predict what was in the way. I am sure other features could be added based on roof angle. The picture just looks so cool.
Does any of this make sense?
 


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Thanks for the link.
I can imagine an app that would use your phone and step you through plotting the solar location on a picture of your sky area. The phone has location and time and could align the plot over the picture since the sun would be in the picture when and where you look it. You could use that to line it up.
Maybe solar installers could use it to sell solar or predict what was in the way. I am sure other features could be added based on roof angle. The picture just looks so cool.
Does any of this make sense?
It does make sense, and it would be a nice app. I would love to have the time to create it.

Most of the solar installers I know use one of two tools:
1) a neat mirrored, semi-spherical tool into which you place a preplotted sunpath based on one's location and of which one takes a photo. So you end up with something similar except in a spherical projection.
2) A suneye, which is basically a specialized camera+small computer that costs a couple to a few thousand dollars.

A phone app that could do this would be awesome. I have never written a phone app, though, so it would be difficult for me to accomplish this. I can write the algorithm/mathematics, but the UI and etc is not something I have experience with.
 
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Overproducing in the middle of winter is a fun feeling. We received permission to operate last week and did our final configuration yesterday. So far today, just before noon, we've sent 57% of our generated electricity to the grid. Now we just need to get our Mustang.
Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... Screenshot from 2022-02-02 11-39-16
Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... Screenshot from 2022-02-02 11-41-34
 
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On 2 March we were on solar + battery for 23.5 hours, and this includes charging the Mustang and the house storage.


Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... Screen Shot 2022-03-04 at 09.51.29
 

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We installed 31, 360 watt panels in the fall, despite our less than ideal location (older, semi-urban setting, lots of 100-year-old trees, yada, yada, yada). Our utility provider isn't net zero, but pays 0.9 cents per kWh for surplus power. Even in winter, with worst sun exposure, we can average 7-8 kW/day on sunny days. The tax break for 2021 for installation was 26%. We also claimed a tax break for installing the electrical upgrade for the car charger (30%). We charge the MME during the day, but have only had the car for a week, so look forward to seeing the impact.

I know high gas prices are terrible for those who are stuck driving an ICE vehicle. But we are happy to never have to spend another penny buying gas, and to spend way less buying coal sourced electricity.
 
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We installed 31, 360 watt panels in the fall, despite our less than ideal location (older, semi-urban setting, lots of 100-year-old trees, yada, yada, yada). Our utility provider isn't net zero, but pays 0.9 cents per kWh for surplus power. Even in winter, with worst sun exposure, we can average 7-8 kW/day on sunny days. The tax break for 2021 for installation was 26%. We also claimed a tax break for installing the electrical upgrade for the car charger (30%). We charge the MME during the day, but have only had the car for a week, so look forward to seeing the impact.

I know high gas prices are terrible for those who are stuck driving an ICE vehicle. But we are happy to never have to spend another penny buying gas, and to spend way less buying coal sourced electricity.
We are paid $0.1045 / kWh of energy we put into the grid. We receive a credit each month for the power fed back into the grid. If our bill would be negative, it's rolled into the next month. If we had a negative bill rolled to the end of the year that's worth more than $25.00, they'll cut us a check and the cycle starts over again. (Yes, this is essentially net metering).

Our billing plan is a purposefully complicated mess.
The utility has "offpeak," "onpeak," "super offpeak," and demand charge plus a bunch of required fees. So even if we produce 100% of our energy and feed some back into the grid, it's highly likely our bill will always be above $0.00.

We charge the Mustang early in the morning and during the super offpeak time (10:00-14:00). Early in the morning because that's when we go to the gym and we want the car nice and warm. I might change the charge time in a month or so just because.

We also charge during super offpeak because it's better environmentally to pull power from the grid at that time because our utility has a surplus of solar energy and they either have to turn off some solar or have to shut down or idle one of their methane-powered generators (this is problematic because the spin-up is more energy-intensive than keeping it running). We've started shifting most of our demand to the 10:00-14:00 time frame to help with this.
 

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Initially I had the Tesla Powerwall set to Time-Based Control but I found it was being recharged primarily by the grid early in the morning. I switched it to Self-Powered and now the battery waits to charge only with solar input. The Powerwall usually reaches 100% by 10:30, so I then charge the MME with the 5 kw from the Tesla and 6 kw from the solar panels, with around 1 kw from the grid to fill out our home needs. I stop the charging around 3:00 so that the solar panels can recharge the Powerwall close to 100% for our nighttime house requirement.
 
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Initially I had the Tesla Powerwall set to Time-Based Control but I found it was being recharged primarily by the grid early in the morning. I switched it to Self-Powered and now the battery waits to charge only with solar input. The Powerwall usually reaches 100% by 10:30, so I then charge the MME with the 5 kw from the Tesla and 6 kw from the solar panels, with around 1 kw from the grid to fill out our home needs. I stop the charging around 3:00 so that the solar panels can recharge the Powerwall close to 100% for our nighttime house requirement.
Our utility charges us extra for peak use times and significantly less for super off-peak times.
Summer doesn't have super off-peak and generally higher rates throughout the day.

So, at least in the winter, it's best for us to charge both our Mustang and our battery bank. from 10:00 to 15:00.
Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... Screen Shot 2022-03-04 at 18.27.40
 

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These are the EV2-A and EV-B plans offered by PG&E, which I passed on. It is a good example why so many people are leaving California. I chose a plan that is 31 cents off-peak and 38 cents weekdays 5:00-8:00pm. That is why my charging timing maximizes solar and minimizes sending power back into the grid.


Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... rates-ev2-a-745px



Ford Mustang Mach-E Finally getting solar for charging my Mustang... rates-ev2-b-745px
 
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These are the EV2-A and EV-B plans offered by PG&E, which I passed on. It is a good example why so many people are leaving California. I chose a plan that is 31 cents off-peak and 38 cents weekdays 5:00-8:00pm. That is why my charging timing maximizes solar and minimizes sending power back into the grid.
Yeah, that looks super high! Especially if you also pay other costs on top of that. Our average cost before we installed solar was about $0.25/kWh, despite the advertised costs of less than $0.10/kWh. Much of that is "generating fee" or "meter reading fee" even though the meters are on a mesh network and read themselves.
 

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Whoa! And I thought our rates were high at $0.21/kWh. Wish we had the sunlight here in Alaska. I know some people do have solar around town but the reality is it is not cost effective up here. I may do it sometime; however, I would need to clear quite a few trees so the net effect environmentally is not as great as it might be.
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