Off Grid solar charging station is up and running.. weather permitting!

Of course we are in the midst of a endless series of weather systems, giving little solar power. But, we have enough today before the next system hits to actually add some miles to the truck! We did have to add an Emporia charger so we could reduces the draw below 30Amps. The ford charger has no controls on it and you can't control the charging rate via the truck like you can on the Tesla's. So adding a adjustable charger was the only option. We have some quirks yet to work out, and really need a good sunny day to fully test it out. But, it looks like it it going to work. We won't be able to do 100% of our charging this way, but that was expected/planned.

How many kilowatts does your array generate in peak conditions?

We don't actually know, we won't have peak conditions for quite a while. The panels are BlueSun 460W Half-Cell Bifacial Solar Panel (Silver) | Up to 575W with Bifacial Gain.
We will be putting white rock down below the panels to maximize the Bifacial production, but until we have the rock down and a full sun day, we don't actually know. And that would just be a winter sunny day, the summer, who knows. With 10 panels, In theory, we could get up to 5.7KW

Wouldn't it be great to have it DC (DC/DC converter version required) via a low power home CCS EVSE with CCS directing MPPT power delivered to the vehicle?

Would be way more efficient-- I imagine we will see this capability one day. I don't know enough about the technology to know if it would be possible with some kind of new chargers that works with existing EV's, or if it would require a new generation of EV's..

adoublee said:

Wouldn't it be great to have it DC (DC/DC converter version required) via a low power home CCS EVSE with CCS directing MPPT power delivered to the vehicle?

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Very cool set up. I'm in the beginning phases of trying to figure out how to take something like this camping or for long traveling, so I'm interested in seeing how it works out. Good luck!

How much did you spend if it's not a secret?

This is very nice! What size buffer battery do you have there? I can’t wait to build a carport this Spring in my driveway and put solar on it, and on the shed next to it. It will be off grid like yours. It will be for pure independence during the sunny months. I work at home most of the month, with the exception of four days, so it doesn’t have to be speedy

Phil0110 said:

How much did you spend if it's not a secret?

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More than we planned, we were hoping for 10k, but I think it was closer to 14k when we added up all the receipts including all the misc supplies I.e. pvc, glue, screws, and such. We hadn’t planned on having to buy a charger not realizing that there was no way to throttle the ford 14-50 nema charger. 30% Tax credit will knock that down. If you can design a system that will push 30 amps you can save the cost of a charger. We could parallel two inverters, but the second inverter is more than the charger. Batteries are two 48v lifepo 100 amp in parallel. I’m retired and the truck can charge during the day when I get back from tennis or pickle ball

Shrike said:

Very cool set up. I'm in the beginning phases of trying to figure out how to take something like this camping or for long traveling, so I'm interested in seeing how it works out. Good luck!

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Just stick one of these in the bed of your truck...
https://smartflower.com/products/

mr.Magoo said:

Just stick one of these in the bed of your truck...
https://smartflower.com/products/

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Ahhh, that is pretty cool. When I first looked at it and just looked at the picture, I thought it was some kind of toy or gizmo... I wonder how much they will cost... $$$$

swngdncr said:

Ahhh, that is pretty cool. When I first looked at it and just looked at the picture, I thought it was some kind of toy or gizmo... I wonder how much they will cost... $$$$

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The ground mounted one is around 40-50K if i remember correctly.

mr.Magoo said:

The ground mounted one is around 40-50K if i remember correctly.

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I'll keep my DIY 14K system, thank you very much . Even on a completely overcast, rainy day, it has take the batteries from 20% up to 40%...

Will you be painting the ground, or cementing around the panels, with light colored cement, to optimize the bifacial feature ?

"We will be putting white rock down below the panels"

Reading is fundamental...

Just wanted to give an update on this project in case anyone out there is considering such an endeavor. We were never able to get the Emporia charger to work with the solar inverter. The charging watts would fluctuate wildly, and eventually the charger would shut down with an overcurrent error. Signature Solar finally concluded that the EG4 - 6000 inverter would just never work for this application and recommended that we buy a different inverter and charge controller that would have cost us another more than 5K. But, knowing that charging directly off of solar was working with Teslas, I decided as a last resort to buy a TeslaTap and borrowed a friends mobile Tesla charger to test it. Voila, it actually worked and we were able to charge without any shutdowns. The charging amps were much more consistent, only fluctuating in the 100’s column. Emporia processed a return on their charger, and we bought a Tesla wall charger. We are still having some issues with settings on the EG4-6000 inverter related to the battery and low voltage cutoff, but the latest firmware update may have solved that problem. So, we are able to charge continously at 24Amps now, without the charger shutting down. I’m feeling much relieved that this was actually not the stupidest idea I ever had and the system is pretty much working as planned.