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portable solar array and large battery to charge up volt?

8K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  edk-austin 
#1 ·
I rent a house and can not add solar panels or a home battery to the house. I do have a large and very sunny yard to utilize. Anyone looked in to hooking up a solar array to a storage battery and then using the battery to charge up the electric car (Volt and Bolt in my case) during the night? I drive about 6 miles a day and my wife will soon get a Bolt and be driving 12 miles per day. If we have to use the home's outlets sometimes, no big deal.
 
#2 ·
The math on a bank of solar panels and a powerwall will almost never give you a return on investment, except maybe in the high prices of power in Cali.
 
#3 ·
Because net metering is somewhat favorable here, you may save quite a bit by not buying batteries and hooking it up to the grid...Bottom line, get quotes for both or even an on-grid and with battery...
 
#4 · (Edited)
There are things like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1000W-Grid-...rEpic-Power-/351595242151?hash=item51dcb5a2a7

Not recommended, they aren't really UL or code approved, but do allow you to offset utility power with small panels.
I actually have one, but for experiments only.
No battery required.

To make an off-grid solar to vehicle power supply is quite complex, due to the minimum input power requirements of the OBCM.
 
#5 ·
A grand total of 18 miles per day that adds up to what? 4 or so kwh per day? The cost of solar + storage is way more than you can ever hope to recover with such minimal usage. I understand the desire to go green, but that is such a small amount as to be negligible.
 
#9 ·
If you must have solar for the Volt -
get a small one to charge your smart phone
then you can get more than the 0.5 amps the USB outlet gives you.

----------------
Small change Just to keep the number ( 6-8-12 amps available) at 120 volts but the included L1 devices only do pilot sig for 8-12 amps.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Just place one of these on your voltshelf or dash

http://www.goalzero.com/solar-panels

If you want to charge all day and put it into a battery then add one of these.

http://www.goalzero.com/power-packs

But make no mistake, that .5A you are saving by not using the 12V battery isn't going to give you more than a few dozen feet of extra range if anything at all.
 
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