Sustainable and more cost-effective: photovoltaics and electromobility in the vehicle fleet
Why is photovoltaics a perfect combination in an e-fleet? What are the advantages for fleet owners? What feature does energy and charge management software offer here? We answer these and many other questions in the following blog post.
Photovoltaics – the direct conversion of (solar) light energy into electrical energy is more popular than ever. The demand for self-generated green electricity continues to grow strongly. Private households and businesses are opting for a sustainable method and upgrading. What exactly makes PV systems so popular?
In today's times, it is more important than ever to pay attention to taking environmentally friendly measures to counteract climate change. Charging electric cars with electricity from fossil energy sources is not a particularly efficient way of doing this, as they are burned in the process of being converted into thermal energy, emitting harmful substances into our environment. The use of photovoltaics shows a more gentle alternative. For companies, the integration of PV systems is relevant for their carbon footprint and the path to climate neutrality.
The combination of a photovoltaic system and electric cars makes sense not only ecologically, but also economically. The costs required to convert energy from another form of energy into electricity, also known as "electricity production costs," are between five and eleven cents per kilowatt hour. However, electricity that is fed into the public grid is currently only remunerated at seven to eight cents. This is the reason self-generated electricity should also be consumed by the company itself. New measures introduced by the German government will make it easier to integrate and use self-generated electricity. If the self-generated electricity is fed into the electric vehicle fleet, the travel costs of the electric cars are reduced enormously.
The keyword in PV charging is "weather forecasting": IO-ELON intelligent charging and energy management software uses weather data to accurately forecast the amount of solar output for 24 hours. The charging of the vehicles is advanced with active PV integration to maximize the self-consumption of the PV system. The special feature here is that PV power is provided specifically for the vehicles. The availability of the vehicles is always guaranteed and can be optionally set in detail. Through the self-consumption of the PV system, the electricity costs for charging the vehicles are reduced and at the same time it is prevented that the PV electricity is fed into the grid poorly remunerated. The degree of self-sufficiency is increased and fleet emissions reduced.
Without intelligent charging management, the generated PV electricity is not intelligently coordinated with the charging process of an e-fleet. Only the available electricity would be used for charging on an ad-hoc basis, without any predictive, i.e., planned, charging of the e-cars.
In addition, excess electricity is fed into the public grid. Although this process is remunerated by the energy supplier, subsidized PV systems are not allowed to feed their full output into the grid, which means that the electricity feed is shut off and solar power is produced for free.
PV system and electric car are an ideal combination, provided that an intelligent and demand-based charging management system is integrated. This creates synergy effects and uses regenerative generated electricity even more effectively. A plus for the wallet and the environment.
