You can’t put a gas station on our property but you can harvest the sun to charge up the Electric Car! Build your own EV Charging Station and charge up for 0 MPG!
How do you charge up an EV without using the grid? You need some solar panels, an inverter and a battery for storage. A power station or solar generator combines the inputs and outputs along with battery storage.
You have the sun sending photons down on Earth. A solar panel converts them into electrons and sends them down the wires as DC.
This DC electricity can be stored in a DC battery or converted to AC via an inverter.
The entire process converts DC into AC and then AC back into DC storage in the car’s battery. Some power is lost along the way due to all the conversion, but in the end you can charge an EV with solar panels using such a system.
How I Set Up My Solar EV Charging System
My wife drives our Ford Mustang MachE EV SUV at least five times a week. A round-trip from home to work is approximately 33 miles total, and driving this route five times a week for a year will consume about 2,860 kWh of power in a Ford Mustang Mach-E.
Based on the average residential electricity rates in New Hampshire, 2,860 kWh of power costs approximately $715. But that’s charging from the grid, charging via solar is going to cost $0 after the initial fixed costs.
Note: An average ICE or fossil fuel burner would cost around $1300 to run on gas for the same commute!
The Ford Mustang MachE gets about 3 miles per kWh, so the commute consumes about 11 kWh. That’s why I chose the Pecron F5000, which comes with onboard 5.12 kWh internal battery capacity plus two additional 5.12 kWh batteries. In theory, on a good day, this will give us 15 kWhs to charge up the EV.
The other things needed are the Ford Mobile Charger (plugs into a standard outlet), some solar panels, some wire, a crimping tool etc.
You could set up the solar panels in your driveway, plug them into the Pecron and plug the mobile charger into the Pecron.
We went with a more permanent set up with the Pecron in the basement next to the circuit breakers and a manual transfer switch. The mobile charger is mounted on the wall in the garage and plugged in. When a switch on the transfer switch is thrown, power is sent to the garage outlets.
Pecron F5000 LFP – https://amzn.to/4yCPe7j
PV Wire – https://amzn.to/4wrZTR1
Pecron F5000 LFP – https://amzn.to/4yCPe7j
PV Shut off Switch – https://amzn.to/4fCohbh
Solar Parallel Connectors https://amzn.to/3RY2djx
15A Solar Fuses Holder Inline for Solar Panel and Controller https://amzn.to/4gZQwTA
ECO-WORTHY Solar Crimper Tool Kit – https://amzn.to/4x24Qj7
Automatic Transfer Switch https://amzn.to/4vOdUqP
