Much of the fuel (electricity) that powers my electric vehicle (EV) comes from the sun – from the solar panels on my roof. Creating electric power in this way is good for the environment and good for my pocketbook. I save about $2000 each year by not putting gas into my car. I pay for some of the electricity my household and my EV uses.
I don’t know how much I pay for electricity used by my EV, but I’m pretty sure it’s much less than I would pay for gas. If gas prices continue to be high, my savings for my EV vs. and ICE car would be much higher.
My setup and situation I live in a medium-size 3-bedroom house. Only me and my dog use electricity, so my usage if relatively low. I use electricity for air conditioning, but my house is heated by natural gas. By far most of my electricity consumption is from air conditioning and charging my electric car.
Most of my driving is local, so I only charge the car every few days, and usually the car requires 2-3 hours of charging (to add about 1/3 of my batter capacity). Please not this is a very rough estimate. Charing time varies. My solar panels provide free fuel to my car – though some of my electric power comes from the grid.
Monitoring my solar panels performance
The company that installed my solar panels provided me with a very useful app for monitoring the performance of my solar panels. I can open the app on my iPhone or on my Windows computer. The app lets me see graphically how much energy my system is producing and how much I use. If I produce more than I use, the excess is exported to the grid (to the electric company). If I use more than I produce, I import electricity from the grid. The power company facilitates this exporting and importing and records the pertinent data through a system known as net metering.
The app shows that over the past year, my solar system provided 82 pct of my electrical consumption—1.9 MWh (produced) = 82 pct of 2.3 MWh (consumed), as shown in Figure 2 .
I have 18 solar panels on my roof. I wish I had enough to supply all the electricity I use, but my local power company would not allow me to install a larger system. The power company looked at my billing history before I bought an electric car, and told me I could not install a solar system that would provide more than 110% of my historical usage over the year before my solar panel installation. That usage would have been considerably higher if I had an EV at that time. So if I had the EV for a year, I would have been able to install a larger system that would have taken care of all of my electric power needs.
The app shows a diagram of my solar panels and the energy production from each panel (Figure 2).
One of my panels failed (actually, the inverter that converts direct current, DC, to alternating current, AC). I spotted this problem on the app because production for the faulty panel was considerably lower compared to all other 17 panels. When the system is working as it should, all panels should be producing approximately the same amount of power.
My lovely electric bill
My electric bill is typically between $7 and $9 per month. This covers the power company’s administrative cost for net metering. See Figure 4.
Occasionally my bill has gone up to about $40 to $50, reflecting high usage such as air conditioning or more than typical charging of my car. Shorter periods of sunshine in winter and cloudy days may also contribute to a higher than usual electric bill.
The app view I look at most shows electric production from my roof and consumption by day, week, month, year or lifetime. I’m usually most interested to see the data for the current day.
Figure 5. Energy Production (blue) vs. usage (orange) for a single day.
The day represented in Figure 3 was a sunny day, as indicated by the blue bars, which the system’s production. If my EV is plugged in for charging, I see a large spike in electric power usage (orange). If my electric air condition system is running, usage is considerably higher than the usage shown in Figure 3.
Charging my EV using sun power
In 3 years I’ve traveled about 39,000 miles in my EV. Most of my driving is local, so I rarely think about “range” or how much power I have left. I have only used public charging about five times. It’s much easier and more economical to plug in at home. I plug the car in, which literally in a few seconds, and then walk away. Using solar panels and an EV is convenient, good for the environment and saves you a bundle of money. Fuel from the sun is free.
Also see: The Return of the Chevrolet Bolt and How a $29,000 Hatchback Could Be GM’s Greatest Weapon Against the 2026 Oil Crisis and the Looming Chinese EV Invasion.
Images by William Hagen.
About The Author
William Hagen is a retired journalist and technical writer and holds a B.S. degree in journalism from the University of MD (1973).. Concern for a clean environment led William to install solar panels on his roof in 2022. In 2023, he purchased a 2023 Chevy Bolt EUV as another step away from reliance on fossil fuels. Bill loves his Chevy Bolt after 3 years and 40,000 miles, zero problems. “Best car I’ve ever owned,” he says. He discovered that besides the environmental benefits, an EV paired with rooftop solar makes good economic sense. To know more, you can follow Bill on Facebook.
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