When you have an OCPP smart EV charger to charge your electric vehicle at home, you can use solar energy to supplement home power consumption. Solar energy is the greenest and most free energy, users can contribute to environmental protection and greatly save electricity bills. Then how to use solar energy to charge an electric car?
Basics
Home solar panels are the core part of solar power generation systems. The function of solar panels is to convert sunlight energy into electrical energy. Because home appliances use alternating current, a DC-AC hybrid inverter is needed to convert the direct current generated by home solar energy into alternating current.
The most common way for EV charging is to use power from the grid directly. However, when all the current required by home appliances and EV chargers is bigger than the household current, it will cause unsafe power use, cause some loads to trip, damage the equipment, etc. At this time, the electricity generated by solar panels can be used for home appliances and EV chargers.
iocharger provides the following 3 charging solutions to use solar energy to charge an electric car.
- Full – always charging at the full rate
- Solar assist – use both Solar source & Grid source, with solar source as a priority, and make sure to keep charging until full EV charging.
- Solar only – will use solar source only, if the power is not enough for charging, the charger will be switched to suspended mode, and back to charging if solar is available for charging again.
Problems and Solutions When Using Solar Energy to Charge EVs
While ensuring that home appliances are sufficient, the remaining available current is allocated to EV chargers to charge electric vehicles, dynamically balancing power consumption. However, solar panels themselves cannot store energy, which means that any power generated by the panels must be used immediately by the load or it will be fed back to the grid.
Therefore, it is necessary to use an battery storage system to help users make full use of the power generated by solar panels. Battery storage systems can store energy generated by solar or from the grid when the electricity price is cheap; the stored energy can be discharged during peak times when the electricity price is expensive and then used for home appliances and EV chargers.
When your home has both solar and battery storage systems, we provide the following 2 charging solutions to maximize your economical and safe use of electricity:
- Solar + Battery Assist – Use Solar source & Battery source & Grid source, with solar source as first priority, and battery source as second priority, and make sure to keep charging until the battery is full.
- Solar + Battery Only – Use solar source & Battery only, if not enough for charging, the charger will be switched to suspended mode, and back to charging if solar is available for charging again.
The one-stop OCPP EV charging and energy management solution we provide can well meet users’ safe and economical electricity needs. Users can monitor home energy conditions in real time on the mobile app or web app, and adjust charging and energy plans on time and as needed etc, which is deeply loved by customers.
Please feel free to contact us if you want to learn more:
sales@iocharger.com
