Sustainable travel with electric vehicles
In addition to a solar energy system, a great way you can champion sustainable energy is with an electric car. Electric vehicles have come a long way in the past few years, nearly doubling their distance since 2011 from an average of about 73 miles per charge to around 125 miles. And they are significantly cheaper to run, costing about $485 per year, compared to $1,117 for a gasoline-powered vehicle.
With an electric vehicle, all you have to do is plug in each night and enjoy clean, quiet drives all throughout the next day. Though any regular outlet can do the job, they definitely don’t do it the best. That’s why it’s best to use a Level 2 EV charger. An EV charger is much faster and efficient when it comes to giving your vehicle the energy it needs, and it can provide you insights and data into your vehicle through integrated apps. When it comes to keeping your clean-energy vehicle running, a dedicated EV charger is your best option.
Go fully renewable with SolarEdge + Solar
An electric car is more sustainable than a gas vehicle, but if you’re using power from the grid, and depending on how your local utility generates its power, you could just be transferring where and when those carbon emissions are being produced. Power plants often use polluting fuels to produce electricity, which you then use to charge your car. But you can enjoy clean energy from home to car by getting a dedicated EV charger with your solar panels purchase. So the sun can power your life at home and on the road, and you can know you’re doing your part for mother nature with each new mile.
Types of EV Chargers
There are few different varieties of EV chargers, though they all operate about the same. The main difference is where you can use them and how they draw their power.
1. Private EV chargers are the most versatile because they can be connected to the grid or paired up with a solar energy system. If you haven’t yet made the switch to solar but might decide to do so in the future, this is a good option.
2. Integrated Private EV chargers usually work much like a standard Private EV Charger, but are typically more efficient. You can power up your vehicle in a shorter amount of time if it is connected directly to the inverter, you can get even more power up your vehicle in a shorter amount of time. In some new cases, however, like with SolarEdge Energy Hub inverters, size is no longer an issue because you connect your EV charger to any of their inverters to get more amps out of it when the sun is not shining.
3. Public EV chargers are becoming more common, and you may have already seen some popping up in company parking lots. They may sometimes require a fee to use, but they are a convenient way to stay charged while you’re working or grabbing lunch.
Not Just Faster, But Smarter
How many panels does it take to charge your EV
Finding out how many panels it would take to charge your car is tricky because it depends on a variety of factors: the type of car and the size of its battery, as well as the efficiency of your solar panels for home and the sun hours they receive. A very rough estimate, regardless of the vehicle you have, is somewhere between eight and fourteen panels to charge your EV at full capacity. If you have (or are getting) a solar energy system for your home, then it’s very likely that it will be a big enough system to easily handle a full EV charge.