PV dedicated charging - off the grid goodness

[Valkyrja]

So my wife is engineering what will be our in-house charging for the Mach-e GT. Still waiting on a build date so we have plenty of time.

Thinking about adding more solar panels to the roof as dedicated supply to a charger. We only see 10 bad days of weather per year and have excellent morning to late afternoon sun exposure. Most of the rest of the house already runs on a leased solar system and a Tesla battery backup.

We will have two other vehicles as backup so we are not super concerned with 100% driving availability on the Mach-e. We also have things reasonably close by, including L2 and fast charging stations.

The EV charger she is looking at is the Solar Edge and I was curious if anyone else has had experience with it and/or a similar setup.

Sponsored

 

[timbop]

I don't know anything about that company or their products, but that page you posted seems intentionally misleading from the get-go. They start out comparing their L2 added power to L1 charging speeds:

And then they imply L2 is only ever 32A and their product is needed to get 40A charging. It is also clear the "24kw max charge power" in the chart is dead wrong given that their product is only adding 20% to the charge rate per hour:

Finally their math is off as 30 is only 20% higher than 25 (ie 5 mi/hr is only 20% of 25 mi/hr) - OR - they are adding 8A to 32 so the charge rate should be 31:

I would not walk but run away from that company. Their website is clearly designed to baffle one with BS

 

[Carsinmyblood]

I don't know anything about that company or their products, but that page you posted seems intentionally misleading from the get-go. They start out comparing their L2 added power to L1 charging speeds:

And then they imply L2 is only ever 32A and their product is needed to get 40A charging. It is also clear the "24kw max charge power" in the chart is dead wrong given that their product is only adding 20% to the charge rate per hour:

Finally their math is off as 30 is only 20% higher than 25 (ie 5 mi/hr is only 20% of 25 mi/hr) - OR - they are adding 8A to 32 so the charge rate should be 31:

I would not walk but run away from that company. Their website is clearly designed to baffle one with BS

I agree. That's sales BS that should never had made it past legal review, so this assumes they don't bother.

Sounds a LOT like this: (who are they trying to BS here?)

 

[phidauex]

Those numbers on the site are obviously way off, which is annoying, but SolarEdge is a reputable inverter company - they make a good percentage of residential inverters for the US, and I've installed a lot of their commercial and industrial machines as well. I have a SolarEdge on my house and would generally recommend them.

That said, I haven't used the charger version, though it is a clever addition. The only real benefits of it is that it saves you a circuit in your panel (if you are running a 60A circuit for the PV might as well use it for your charger as well), and IF you live in an area where you can't backfeed the grid, or backfed energy is credited at a much lower rate, then the ability to charge only from excess generation would save you money.

Just keep in mind that most markets aren't like that - most places still get favorable net metering rates, so charging from excess PV or charging from the grid would have the same net cost to you. But if you are in one of the areas with restrictions on backfeed and you have the car at home during the day then it is a clever idea.

 

[Valkyrja]

Sorry to have posted and ghosted.

Appreciate the feedback. As phidauex noted, they are a reputable inverter company and we may just take the gamble.

Yes, we have home PV. Unfortunately it is a leased system that we ended up with when we bought the home. Just getting a battery backup (Powerwall) installed by the solar provider took all kinds of grief and we currently cannot add more to their system. In the next five years we hope to buy out the lease and then expand the system along with a second Powerwall.

Net metering... do not even get me started on the electric company and some of their practices.

Thanks again, plenty of food for thought.

Sponsored