Reading a CNET article discussing EV home charging via solar panels and one section intrigued me.
“Using solar panels to charge an EV actually streamlines the charging process because both systems speak the same electrical language, in a way.”
“As Wyldon Fishman, founder of the New York Solar Energy Society, explained, solar panels and electric vehicles both operate with direct current (DC), meaning there’s no need to install an inverter between your panels and EV, although a charge controller is still imperative to have in the circuit. DC can also run at lower, safer voltages…”
But, the question the article DOESN’T answer is, what solutions are available to facilitate DC to DC home EV charging for modern production cars? Because I sure haven’t seen any! A lot of us now have solar, but any solar charging systems I’ve found all convert the DC output of panels to AC, then the EVSE sends that AC BACK to the car to be converted to DC to charge the car. Seems inefficient in the extreme. Any ideas?
The problem here is: you don’t always have solar (e.g. in winter) and for most people the car isn’t at home while the sun is out because they have a job/commute.
Read: To make DC charging work at home reliably you need a pretty big battery storage system…and you have conversion losses twice: Once going from solar panels (or the grid) into the home storage battery and from there to the car.
It’s just not worth it.
I live in central Florida. The days where solar would be unlikely to meet my EV charging needs are few and far between.
But I’m not talking about building an off-grid home here; I’m merely saying that the article in question makes the point that solar panels generate direct current (DC) power and, as such, are ideal for charging electric cars, which store power as DC. Which is a cool, but it doesn’t address the fact that there is no commercially available solution for getting that energy from one to the other without conversion to, and then back from, alternating current.
Simply stated, the fact that the device that creates the power and the device that stores it utilize the same form of power is meaningless if you have no way to take advantage of that fact…🤷♂️