Solar and wall plug; and pass through charging batteries; and bolt charger

2000 watt solar power battery = 2 kW. (Not factoring in 20% or better conversion losses for DC > AC (solar charging to battery) and back DC > AC (battery to inverter) and AC > DC (car's inverter > DC for traction battery). With a 60 kWh battery, 30 hours best case-ish (very optimistically).

So - yes.

Is it a good idea? Not so sure. Consider me at $0.13 kWh from the electric company - how long would it take to pay back the cost of batteries and inverters (and replace batteries being constantly run down and recharged)?

Now, with a really big solar array - and massive batteries - if I already had them to run my off-grid homestead - maybe-ish (I'd have no other option). Thing is, though - if I'm already on the grid and currently have no solar array and no batteries and no inverters and no wiring and no solar controllers? I don't know about that. I've seen estimates of 20 years to get back the cost of a home solar system to permit 'independence' from the grid - and a Bolt uses a lot more electricity than a house if driven a good distance every day. (And 'independent' systems which have access to the grid, usually connect to the grid anyway, because '5 days of no sun' can easily be overcome by buying some kWh from the power company, but making you own out of dinosaur squeezings is involved and expensive.)

Possible? Yeah, maybe.

Practical? I dunno about that.

Like NotActuallyaPanda said - if you've already got the system, then it will offset the cost of any electricity up to the output of the solar panels - that's a no brainer.

Starting from scratch?

written on a napkin (by a lady who is not an engineer) for FUN -

A Bolt has a ~60 kWh battery. Assuming you ran it completely empty every day (230 miles),

60 kWh / 7 days a week, 6 hours a day = 1395 kW for each hour
= 14 100 watt panels - to do it IN A WEEK. (not factoring in conversion losses DC>AC>DC>AC)
(and almost no place I know of has bright sunshine 6 hours a day, EVERY day - so it's worse than that, really)

To do it in 'overnight' - let's allow 8 hours?
60 kWh / 8h = 7500 kW = 75 100 watt panels, and a place large enough to lay out 75 panels (not on MY roof), and a place to store that energy collected in a day, and controllers and wires and batteries, and assuming your inverter could supply 7.5 kW (most can't - certainly not your 2 kW inverter), ...

And if the sun don't shine and it snows - you don't go to work the next day.

And if you have a blizzard that lasts for a week - your children run out of milk.

$1500 inverter + 4 100 watt solar panels = $2000? $2000 / $0.13 = 16,384 - somethings. Got lost there. If I can produce 2 kW an hour for 6 hours a day (and the inverter might, but 4 100 watt panels can't - they can make at theoretical best 0.4 kW (400 watts) so it would take 20 100 watt panels to make 2 kW), that's 12 kWh, and if my system lasts 1 year, 12 x 365 = 4380 kWh, and $2000 / 4380 = $0.45662 /kWh, or 3.5 times as expensive as buying it from my power company. And THAT's figuring $2000 as the cost of the inverter and 4 100 panels. It's much worse if you figure the real case of 20 100 wat panels at $150/panel. 20 100 watt panels at $150 each = $3,000, + $1,500 inverter/power box = $4,500, so $4500/4380 kW = $1.02639 / kWh, making it 8 times as expensive as buying it from my power company at $0.13 / kWh, meaning it would take me 39.515 years to break even.

If the system lasts 39.515 years or more, maybe.

Thanks - you helped me decide to not buy those solar panels until I move up in the mountains to my isolated cabin miles from the grid.

Fun.

(I'm sure somebody who actually KNOWS how to do this stuff is going to point at my math errors and silly assumptions - I'll live with that. (I'll be embarrassed, but I'll live.). Does it change the recommendation? Engineery people - have at me, for our education.)

/r/BoltEV Thread