Charging An Electric Car Batteries With Solar Cells
Is it possible to charge the batteries of a Do It Yourself (DIY) electric car with solar cells?
As it turns out, you can.
However, you can’t mouth the solar cells on the car because there is simply not enough surface area. Well, unless you want to cover the entire car with Photovoltaic (PV) cells, that will be cool though, but still not enough.
The only way to utilize solar power on an EV is through a stationary solar array…preferably at your home.
If you are planning to charge to batteries with solar energy, look at your battery charger first.
How much current does it need?
A typical solar panel with 36 pieces of 3” x 6” solar cells is capable of generating 18 volts at approximately 75 watts of electricity. Is it compatible with the battery charger?
The solar array can easily be scaled up meaning you can add more solar panel to increase the current output from the solar cells.
There is a clear benefit of using solar energy to power a pure electric car…you have literally zero cost for driving the EV.
When you are using an EV, you’ve already saved a ton of money on gasoline. Your vehicle running cost is the electricity needed to charge the deep cycle batteries. And when you are using free energy from the sun, your electric car is literally off the power grid. A pure green vehicle!
Would it be difficult to build a DIY solar power system at home?
If a person can convert a gas guzzler to run on purely electricity, building a residential solar energy system is a piece of cake. The system is much simpler compared to an electric car conversion project. You have less components to worry about also.
How much does a home solar power system cost? I did some reading on this subject. The actual cost of the entire system is not very expensive.
A DIY solar panel can be built with a budget of less than $200. You can save a lot of money by sourcing for cheap or recycled solar cells. All you need to know is where to find them.
Related web pages:
Solar Power For Homes – Charge Your EV Batteries at Home with Solar Power
One of the e-book that I received as a bonus when I bought Convert 2 EV was on the subject solar power for homes. It was a very interesting read. The book basically show you the benefits of living off the nation power grid.
There is one chapter that focuses on charging your electric vehicle batteries with solar energy. Electric car has been proven to be cheaper to run compared to a conventional gasoline driven car.
The operating cost of an EV is basically the electric bill you have to pay when you charge the batteries overnight. If we can charge the batteries using free energy from the sun, wouldn’t that lower the cost of running an electric vehicle even further? I guess it would.
My next question is how much does it cost to setup a solar power for homes system?
The book mentioned that you can build your own solar array at home with as little as US300. I honestly don’t think the investment cost is that low. I don’t think it is impossible to achieve that figure, but I understand it will take a lot of preliminary preparation to do that.
Just like a DIY electric car conversion, you can reduce your cost by spending the time to source for cheap, reconditioned of used parts and components.
I believe anyone who has the skill and dedication to do their own electric car retrofitting will be able to build their own solar power system to charge the batteries. You have all the tools and the know how to use the tools. Building an electric car is much harder than setting up a residential solar array.
