Installing solar PV on your home can be a great thing for any homeowner as you can benefit from generating your own electricity and make savings on your electricity bills. But as a higher users of electricity, electric vehicle (EV) owners could feel the benefit even more.
Why EV owners like Solar Panels
Many owners of electric vehicles have invested in an EV because they want to be kinder to the environment and want to reduce the cost of running their car. If these are your motivates then the next step is to invest in solar panels as it has many of the same benefits. Solar Panel systems enable you to generate green electricity, so you are less reliant on the national grid for electricity which comes from multiple sources that are not all clean or green. It also allows you to reduce your electricity bills.
As an EV owner, if you are charging your vehicle at home, you will have seen an increase in your electricity bills and will probably be keen to reduce them.
Will Solar Panels work for me?
A large proportion of houses have a suitable roof space for solar panels as long as it is facing the right direction for the sun and there is no shading. It doesn’t matter if you have a pitched or flat roof as there are options available for most roof types.
If you work and your car will not be at home charging during daylight hours you may be thinking that this is not an option for you, but it still can be. You can combine solar PV with battery storage so that the electricity generated during the day can be used during the evening or night to charge your car.
The size of your roof will determine the size of the solar panel system that can be installed on your property and how much electricity it can generate. Your EV and its battery size, as well as the distance that you drive will determine how much charge will be covered by the electricity you generate, and whether it will need topping up by electricity from the grid. Your household appliances will also be using the electricity generated by the solar panels.
An example…
If you drive to work doing the average commute of 19.5 miles and your EV does an average of 3 miles per kWh, you will need 6.5kWh of electricity to charge your vehicle each day. A 12 panel solar system used in the example below can generate an average of 12.95kWh per day. This would mean you could use half of the electricity generated to charge your EV for your commute, and the other half for your household consumption. This will significantly lower your electricity bills and your travel costs, and you will know that your vehicle is running on green electricity.
How much could I save if I installed Solar Panels?
If we took a three bedroom house in the South-East of the UK as an example, a typical installation size would be a 12 panel solar panel system with battery storage of 5.12kWh, this could generate 4,728.12kWh per year. This example household could save £1,008.47 which is made up of £771.75 electricity bill savings and £236.72 in export payments for unused electricity.
If this household had a medium electricity usage of 3,500kWh per year and their electricity tariff charged 24.5kWh and a standing charge of 60.1p/day, their annual electricity bill without solar would be £1,076.86.
You can typically see a return on your investment in 5-9 years and solar PV with battery storage can last for 30 years. Based on inflation over the next 30 years, the average annual savings over the system’s lifetime would be £2,431.15. When we factor in the initial installation costs and any replacement parts during the 30 years the total savings are £57,689.37.
Interested in installing solar PV on your home?
So if this has made you think about installing solar PV on your home, then fill in our quick and simple online form, where we can see whether your home is suitable, what size system it could have and most importantly, how much you could save with solar!
