Charging ahead

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Today I read a number of comments elsewhere from those who didn’t think it was possible to run an electric vehicle in the UK with a ‘significant’ degree of solar charging. I’m not sure how they come to that conclusion when some of us are doing it.

Now clearly the vehicle needs to be home, sometimes, and there’s a limit to how much can be generated; but it certainly works for me. I average around 20 miles per day, which is about 6 kWh of electricity; but my average daily generation is 11 kWh. That’s clearly seasonal, so I doubt that I can solar charge through the depths of winter – November to January I don’t generate 6 kWh on average let alone have 6 kWh available for EV charging.

It needs a certain mindset. I think most EV users try to get a full charge when they charge but many go for several days between charges. With solar charging I try to ensure that I have enough charge on board for the day ahead (potentially charging a little overnight to achieve this when necessary), but on a sunny day with the car at home I can get a full charge during the day. I only try to get a full charge by the start of a day on imported electricity when I know I’m going on a relatively lengthy trip, otherwise I deliberately don’t aim for a full charge to leave space for solar input if available. Whenever the car is at home it’s plugged in ready for when the sun shines. Typically I’ll leave the weekend with the vehicle almost fully charged (1 full day of sunshine can get a full charge), that will drift a bit during the week, possibly benefitting from a day at home during the week if I have meetings in London, then by the weekend it’s almost empty.

Top-ups during the week (at least during the summer) are often before I leave for work in the overlap where I have some solar (but not enough to run the charger) but am also in the Economy 7 window.

Overall I think that I have a good claim that most of the electricity for charging comes from my own solar during the course of a year.

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