The number of people with solar panels and an electric vehicle has been rising steadily over recent years across Ireland. Using solar panels to charge your EV can help to save you more money on electricity bills, reducing the payback period for both systems.
It also helps to further reduce your carbon footprint by relying almost entirely on renewable energy for your home and transport needs.
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How Solar Panels and Home EV Chargers Work
Solar panels and electric vehicle charging are two separate systems, but they can work harmoniously together – which is great news for those interested in further reducing their carbon footprint, while saving on their bills at the same time.
Before we explore how solar energy can be used to charge your EV, let’s briefly look at how solar panels and EV charging actually works.
Choosing an EV Charger for Solar
While any EV charger can work with solar panels by connecting with your home grid, some brands are more suited than others.
The MyEnergi Zappi, which is the most popular EV charger in Ireland, is designed to work with a home solar installation. The charger comes in 7kW and 22kW models and features smart Eco and Eco+ charging modes for homes with solar or wind power.
While the Eddi is the best-selling charger in Ireland and is solar compatible, there are various other EV chargers on the market, which you can learn more about here.
Alternative Solar EV Charging Methods
Solar Battery Systems
If you have a solar battery installed to go with your solar panels this will store the surplus power they generate during the day for later use.
As the majority of EV Charging is done at home in the evening or night time, this will be when your solar panels are producing less or no electricity.
Having a solar battery installed alongside your PV array can allow you to store electricity generated during the afternoon in order to use it to charge your EV at home in the evening.
Solar Battery systems can start as low as 5kW storage capacity, which won’t be of much use for charging an EV.
However, many modern battery systems have modular designs which allow multiple modules to be connected for capacities of 30kW or more.
However, as EV battery sizes typically eclipse this, getting a large scale battery system installed just for EV charging would be too costly to be of use.
DC Coupled Systems
Solar panels generate electricity as direct current (DC), and this is converted into alternating current (AC) by the system’s inverter for use in your home.
While the majority of EV charging and solar battery systems take their power from the household grid and convert it back to DC for storage this does not have to be the case.
It is also possible to install a DC Coupled or Off-Grid system which connects your EV charger directly to a Solar PV array or battery system.
This allows for much faster charging than drawing from the home grid, as it bypasses the need for any AC/DC conversion in your EV.
Solar Carports
A solar carport is a type of canopy covering a car parking space such as a driveway. Perfect for businesses with a car park, the canopy has solar PV panels on its roof, and can easily have an EV charger connected in order to charge your vehicle(s).
Synching Solar Power and EV Charging
One problem with using solar panels to charge an electric car is that the majority of electricity made by your solar panels will be during the mid-afternoon. This is also the time when people are most likely to be at work or otherwise out of the house.
If you are not making use of a Solar Battery then you can still reduce or eliminate the cost of charging you EV at night by selling surplus electricity from your solar PV array back to the grid.
Feed-in Tariffs & Night-time Charging
One option for your solar PV system is to sell surplus electricity generated during the day back to the national grid. And, with special electricity tariffs designed for electric car owners, you can save even more on your electricity bills, or even turn a profit, depending on your usage and charging needs.
| Electricity Provider | Feed In-Tariff c/kWh (Inc VAT) | Cheapest Night Rates c/kWh (Exc VAT) |
| Pinergy | 25c | 5c |
| SSE Airtricity | 19.5c | 8.72c |
| Energia | 20c | 8.14c |
| Bord Gáis | 18.5c | 8.54c |
| Flogas | 20c | 18.33c |
| Electric Ireland | 19.5c | 9.5c |
However, when relying on night time charging rates for your EV, it is very important to research closely what timetable is offered with your plan.
Some providers such as Pinergy, Energia, Electric Ireland and Bord Gais advertise a special EV charging tariff among their smart plans. But this tariff is only applicable to a very short window, typically lasting from around 2am – 4am/6am.
