There has been quite a bit of discussion centering on a possible optional solar panel on the roof (?) of the Volt. Without knowing any details on the panel, we can make a reasonable guess that it would be capable of putting out 100-200W under direct, full sun. This is clearly not enough to provide a meaningful charge against a possible 40-mile all-electric range, but it could be enough to provide other services - as yet unknown.
How much would you be willing to pay for the solar panel option? You may select only one choice.
I have solar panels on my roof, but I don't want panels on the car even if they could do a little more than charge the 12 volt battery. I would have to park it outside in the sun all day to get any benefit from the panels and that shortens the life of the paint and all the plastic, fabric, and whatever else is inside the car, not to mention the heat buildup. If I didn't have a garage and the panels were super efficient, maybe.
Solar Panels, with the technology we have today, simply don't work on a car. I had a solar panel on my 2010 Prius and all it did was power a ventilation fan. Even that job it did rather poorly unless I was parked in direct sunlight. Given that, I'm pretty sure the additional heat generated inside the cabin negated the fan and likely raised the temperature more than if I merely parked in the shade.
The size required for ANYTHING significant would be impossible on the roof.
The Prius has a $1500 option for one and all it does is run a fan.
On cold/hot days I just remote start it. Heating/cooling using the 240V from the house.
If its really nasty, I physically go turn it on, so it won't shut down after 10 minutes.
Solar Panels on cars, while it has that warm, fuzzy, feel good factor, with nice sounding buzz words, it is like much other ideas. It simply doesn't make sense. With current technology, everyone would be better off putting any solar panel (or panels) for the car, on your roof, or in your yard for a "net metered" system tied into your electrical box. Of course, some people that have little knowledge of solar panels might try to argue this, but it is correct.
Actually, having a solar panel on the roof would be cool in my extra sunny neck of the woods (Sacramento, CA). Being forced to park the vehicle while the sun bears down on the car, it would be cool if some PV system could be placed on the roof. Lord knows, there's no such option for a sun roof. Although a single panel on the roof wouldn't add much to the battery, it's just sitting there in the sun anyway, so why not put it to good use?
I have a 2.75 Kw PV system in my house, installed in October. I won't see an ROI on it for at least 6 years, but my total energy bill will be less...save for the fact that I have a Volt and Chevy Spark EV.
"Although a single panel on the roof wouldn't add much to the battery, it's just sitting there in the sun anyway, so why not put it to good use?"
Exactly my point. While it would be "cool" to have a solar panel on the car to help charge it, it would be much more practical to simply take whatever you were going to use on the car and "add" it to your solar array.
In every practical measure, it is better to add that panel, and cost, and weight, to your array, not your car. Maybe when panels are super cheap and can generate far more electricity than current technology allow, then it might become practical to add a panel to your car.
Purchasing Solar Panels for the house to charge my Volt
I just put money down on a used 2012 red leather/nav volt I will be picking it up next week and I have already purchased a used Clipper Creek 25A charging station and a digital meter reader.
I purchased both on EBay, the meter reader was $45.00 and the used 240V charger was $317.00 so I am already ahead of the game by saving $$$ buying the used charger which we all know can be as high as $1000.00
So now that I have the money and time saving 240v charging station I have my sights set on a solar panel charging set up
I have done some research and pricing and found this to be a good start (see attachment)
the only two things left to purchase for my Solar charging set up are an inverter and a battery bank.
If anyone has figured out a less expensive and simpler solution I am all ears
I just put money down on a used 2012 red leather/nav volt I will be picking it up next week and I have already purchased a used Clipper Creek 25A charging station and a digital meter reader.
I purchased both on EBay, the meter reader was $45.00 and the used 240V charger was $317.00 so I am already ahead of the game by saving $$$ buying the used charger which we all know can be as high as $1000.00
So now that I have the money and time saving 240v charging station I have my sights set on a solar panel charging set up
I have done some research and pricing and found this to be a good start (see attachment)
the only two things left to purchase for my Solar charging set up are an inverter and a battery bank.
If anyone has figured out a less expensive and simpler solution I am all ears
Sorry about not getting back to you sooner. Been having dinner with the family. Net-metering is by far the best way to use solar energy. You are connecting your solar panels to your electric grid. It is considered a grid tie system. Your solar panels push whatever they produced directly to your electric meter. This way you are always connected to the electric grid and there are virtually no losses whatsoever. Using a battery bank is really expensive and inefficient compared to a net metered system. Of course, you will need to get permission from the electric company to do this. But it is becoming very common and many of us on here have done this. If you look at my profile, I believe you can see one picture of my system. Whether you do a big system or a small system, net-metering is the way to go.
Net-metering allows your electric meter to actually count electricity from two directions. What you use (from the grid) and what you produce (from your array). If you are producing more than you are using, your meter will physically count backwards which is the heart of net-metering.
I did not win the bid on the clipper creek 240v EVSE and I am glad that I didn't get it because I found a company that puts together an awesome 60Amp charging system called The JuiceBox Everything about this EVSE is double the quality and its half the price
I would also echo that grid tie is the way to go for solar energy. And you'll need professional help for that.
That being said, I'm an EE tinkerer, and have a small off grid solar system for low voltage backup power in my house. I am also making an off-grid solar charge cart for the Volt. It will use 200W of solar panels, and provide 1000W to the car at up to 20% duty cycle. That's the simple explanation. The details are a lot more complex, since solar panels never provide the full STC power. A closed loop control algorithm is necessary to monitor energy flow and cycle AC voltage to the car.
This isn't a practical product, but will be a fun project. My 1-way commute is 9 miles, and my employer provides free L2 EVSE use. If my solar charger can replenish a significant portion of the 2.2KWHr I use in the 1 way commute, I'll be pleased.
I'm also interested in vehicle temperature maintenance. With delayed charging (or full charge), and the AC input powered, the vehicle can still draw power to keep coolant systems running. I'm thinking that may in the end be a better use of the solar power system.
@deanfearon, you can't just take panels, charge controller, battery and inverter and expect it to work. The Volt will take 1000W from the battery and inverter, thank you very much, and completely discharge the battery. Do that continuously, and you have a dead (damaged) battery. Not sure what size/type battery you're thinking of, but remember battery capacities are normally specified at fairly low discharge rates.
For those people that still don't understand why on-board solar panels don't really make sense to charge an electric car, here are some numbers. I really wanted to make this work and thought that even if I could add just a few miles per day, that would be nice. My commute is 18 miles each way so some days I really need to watch my range. So I did a little research.
I wanted to see if it would be worth trying to figure out a solar roof option for my Volt. I found a flexible solar panel on Amazon (http://goo.gl/hQd8wg) for $220. You can fit 2 of these 100W panels on the roof of your Volt with very little modifications. I have a 2012 so with the already black roof, I thought it would be a nice addition.
I run my entire house off of a solar array and in my experience if you're laying out a 200W system outside in the open sun, all day long, then you would produce at a minimum .2kW, maximum 1.2kW and an average of about .6kW per day (from dawn to dusk). That's using my current solar array for comparison and almost a year's worth of South Florida testing. On paper a 200W system should produce more than that but in reality, it's not going to happen. You simply won't get ideal conditions every day.
At an average of 4 miles per kWh, .6kWh would give me just over two miles of range if I park my car in the sun. You can get even more anal and start calculating how much kWh it'll take for you to cool your car down since you parked it in the sun all day, but I won't go there.
Anyways, point being, it's not worth the $500+ investment to maybe get 2 extra miles by leaving your car out in the sun all day. These cars use a ton of juice and solar panels aren't even close to keeping up with their output.
A better idea would be to use the solar panel to do some active cooling in your car while you parked so you don't need to waste so much of your battery to cool down the car on those hot summer days. I think our Prius friends have something like this.
I agree with many others here I would put solar on the roof of the house, grid tied net metered, and ideally try to zero out your poser usage.
For us out 7.1KW system on the roof powers the house and now both cars. We have gone 11 months just paying the connection fee of $7.21. We swapped out nearly all lights to LED which saves almost enough the charge the Volt. Solar + Efficiency improvements + electric vehicles allow one to have their cake AND eat it too.
kciaccio
"The more you understand how a Volt actually works the more laughable this option becomes..."
Nearly a decade ago I installed my PV system. It paid for itself in 3.5 years. Bought a Volt in 2012 and still don't know what the going rate of electricity is and don't care, why because I have a PV system that supplies all my needs for both house and car.
Given your experience, how much power would a solar panel built into the limited space on the roof of the new Volt provide on a sunny day ? Keep in mind the roof has some complex curves so the panel would likely be very costly and not be as efficient as a roof mounted array mounted at an optimal angle.
My guess is the ~$5000 cost for this add-on would make it a non-starter for most, and hence not worth the tooling and expense for GM. I base the cost on what the Fisker Karma option was priced at. Its output was rated at 100-200 watts.
I could see spending $1000 on an option that would run the A/C while the car is parked in direct sunlight. That would be awesome and would undoubtedly (slightly) extend range on hot days. I'm sure in fair-weather climates it would provide a small boost in range under normal conditions too (maybe 1-2 miles?). Also I'm sure it could provide a small amount of charge when parked where charging is not possible. Driving out to the lake to spend the day lounging? Getting back to the car with an extra 2-miles of range would be nice. I doubt it would pay for itself in any reasonable amount of time (or ever, really) but if it included the A/C-cooling feature that would be enough to pay extra for it.
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