Solar power for charging

Hello,

This may a really stupid question as I have absolutely no idea about solar electricity! Has anyone set up charging of their vehicle from solar panels at their house? I have been toying with the idea of going solar at home and wondered what would be needed (if anything) to set the car up.

On a side note, my local dealer was kind enough to let me borrow a 2016 model this weekend while I wait for my 2017 Technik to arrive in April. I really enjoyed the ride, but found myself getting a little frustrated by the dropping off of power available. Our temperatures in the Southern Interior of BC are hovering around 0 to 1 degrees. I started out with a range of 36 kms (full charge), travelled 17 kms, but ended up with 6 kms left when I got home. I tried to use the braking and found myself overthinking. However, I did feel I was driving with more caution. The whole time was in EV, using the paddles to brake. Also, I didn't realize how much room you lose in the trunk compared to the standard A3 Sportback.

If this the general feeling at the start with this new technology?

Thanks!
Ferster

At 8.29 cents per kWh you're better off just paying BC Hydro to charge your car - that's about $2.00 for 100km of driving an e-tron in EV mode...compare that to an economy car - 7L/100km at $1.19 a litre - and you are about 1/4 the cost of using pump gas! Plus, BC is nearly 100% clean/renewable power.

A solar install that could charge your car in any reliable way is going to cost a lot, and you're probably better off using solar for hot water - especially in the interior where you actually get sun in the winter/spring/fall unlike here in Vancouver. The e-tron's charger will expect to be able to pull 15A at 110v constantly, which solar may not be able to provide. I am sure someone offers a system that would work, but it most likely charges your car slower.

36km is way above the 26km claimed by Audi. I have read that the EV range will sometimes read high depending on conditions. If you had a 17km trip and it showed 6km left, you're doing pretty good for a BC winter drive in an EV. Some reviews have gotten nearly 40km out of a charge in typical California weather, so you might do a little better in the warmer months.

The trunk space isn't really much different from the previous A3 - what you lose is the spare tire.

When did you order your e-tron? I ordered one two weeks ago and they are saying May at the earliest, and more likely June or July for delivery...!

Since I got the ETRON the a couple of months ago I have charged it once almost everyday completely from Solar. 16x solar panels (4.2-5.0 KW) feeding a 20kw battery storage system which charges the car each night. The battery also has enough to supply the house each day.
This time of year the panels generate 18-30kw each day. Overall including charging the car and supplying all of the house load, we consume about 2/3rd's of our total generation with a 1/3 more capacity going back out onto the grid.

I only got interested in electric cars after I got solar installed at our home three years ago. I liked the idea of "powering a car by the sun." I had a reservation for a Tesla model X for a couple of years, until I finally decided in December that it didn't make sense to get one, at least now (and so I bought an etron.) So now, since the arrangement here is the electric company buys the excess power I produce, I haven't paid any electric bills since the system was installed. And since the excess they buy back is capped ( I forget how much, but there is an excess being "wasted,") I have a couple of Tesla Powerwalls on order. So, aside from really liking the etron, the whole arrangement is pretty cool.

We are in Ontario and have a 10Kw system on our roof. It's about enough to power 2-3 houses on a sunny day. We have a 20 year contract to provide electricity to the grid. So although we typically charge at night, I guess you could say we offset some of that by generating during the day. In Ontario the base is nuclear and hydroelectric, with the peak demand being largely supplied by natural gas, so solar directly reduces that during the day.

Apparently, generating to the grid is the most efficient, since charging batteries for later use in the home suffers from some losses. However, if the grid is not an option, then batteries are definitely the way to go, which is why there is talk of using car batteries to power your house! Also why Tesla is offering the Powerwall as a product.

A guy down the street from us has a Model S, so we might be charging his car too.

MSMatt":2u69tn9h said:

A guy down the street from us has a Model S, so we might be charging his car too.

Click to expand...

Hi Ferster
I have been using use my solar arrays to charge my e-tron for almost three years now. I bought the solar system thinking about an EV or PHEV and at the time the UK Government were providing a grant that covered the cost of a charging point.
Despite having a 32A charging point available, I mostly use the Audi provided EVSE as it enables me to select 50% or 100% charge and switch the input cables to the EVSE depending on the season in order to enable me to charge at various currents, namely 5A, 8A, 10A and 16A all at 250VAC. In winter I may only generate around 10kWh per day compared to around 50kWh in summer.
As we get paid in the UK for all the power we generate as opposed to what we input to the National Grid it is effectively free electricity!
Cheers,
Jerry

We have the solar system running for 3 months now. We have no batteries and a 3.5 kw system. I try to charge the car between 10 and 2. I have the charger set at 50% but the charge time does not change for the 100%. By charging at those times I get to use all the power from the system. I usually sell back around 25% to 35% to the grid.