Charging from solar

[Mollieanna]

I’m confused. I have a lovely Macan EV which I am loving driving. I have solar panels and the UK has been experiencing fantastic sunny weather and my panels are drinking it all in! I have not as yet charged the Macan from my solar system. My late husband had a Hyundai ev and when he charged from the solar he used a three pin plug on a special cable to the car. Is this necessary. Can I not just plug the car into my wall charger and solar will do its thing!

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[timps]

The reason for the 3 pin plug may be that the output of your panels does not meet the output of charger. Likely to be 7kw. I’ve been charging this weekend off solar typically at 1.7kw. My charger a Zappi automatically adjusts its output to match the solar it’s receiving.

if you don’t have a charger that will do that for you then the 3pin makes sense.

 

[ChrisFromUK]

I don't charge from the solar panels at all. Any excess solar is sold to the grid for 15p/KW and I charge my car from the grid over night at a cost of 7p/KW.

 

[RunningOnSolar]

There are a few potential factors in play here. I have a Solar Edge inverter and it will power everything in my house including the charger given the right mix of available solar power, battery power and settings. It also has a setting that will charge a car only with whatever is leftover after powering the house.

If you are charging from solar, you should see an additional drain on whatever you use to monitor your solar panels when you plug the Macan in.

Without more details, it is difficult to be sure what might be going on especially since US and UK standards for plugs are different and you could be charging at either Level 1 or Level 2 from your description.

 

[Mollieanna]

Thank you Timps, Chrisfromuk and runningonsolar for taking the time to reply. I think I might stick to choking car on cheap rate overnight and selling my excess back to the grid.xx

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