4 reasons why photovoltaic systems & EV charging are the ...

The energy crisis and rising prices of fossil fuels are posing a burden on many businesses. Solar energy is an infinitely available energy resource, but if we want to use it to its best potential, we need smart technologies to help us.

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In this blog post, we explore four reasons why a photovoltaic (PV) system in combination with EV charging makes sense and why this business model is becoming highly important for companies everywhere.

In , solar and wind power supplied 22% of the energy consumed in Europe, more than doubling from . And the reason for such growth? The climate emergency pushing for the use of renewable energies, but also the cost of renewable energy, which is now meeting the prices of carbon energy.

Photovoltaic systems and solar energy offer some serious advantages. Let&#;s dive into the four reasons why using solar panels for EV charging makes sense and take advantage of the opportunities solar power generates.

CO2-neutral operations attract customers

First, with solar power, you generate 100% renewable energy and actively help reduce CO2 emissions. Solar EV charging makes the operation of electric cars completely CO2-neutral.

Our study with Kantar found that over 70% of EV drivers prefer to charge their batteries with electricity from renewable sources.

As a provider of self-generated solar power, you increase your EV charging stations&#; attractiveness to EV drivers committed to reducing their carbon footprint. If you install EV chargers powered by a PV system, you present yourself as an innovative, environmentally friendly and sustainable company that will stand out from the competition.

Maximum cost efficiency

If you produce your own electricity, you become independent of the electricity market and its price developments. In combination with EV charging stations, you can hand over your generated electricity at the market price and benefit from significantly higher profit margins at no cost.

You can also pass this cost advantage directly to your EV charging customers and ensure higher utilisation of your chargers because EV drivers are willing to travel longer distances to save money.

An example:

In Europe, typical solar panels produce 400-650 W. Yearly energy production per installed kWp (kilowatt peak, maximum power under best conditions) ranges from 900 to kWh depending on the location; the sunnier the country, the more energy is produced.

For this blog post, let&#;s take an example of an average PV system with an area of 6 to 7 m2, corresponding to approximately four individual solar panels. A PV system of this size can produce about 1 000 kWh of solar power per year.

1 000 kWh can fully charge a VW e-Golf 28 times and provide a driving range of about 8 000 km, with an average consumption of 13.20 kWh per 100 km.

Good to know: For direct charging of an EV with a PV system, an excess power of at least 1.4 kW is necessary with 1-phase charging. For newer car models that charge 3-phase, it must be three times as much, i.e. at least 4.2 kW. That means that solar power charging is suitable in combination with AC standard charging stations with an output of up to 22 kW.

Get rewarded for your efforts

The expansion of renewable energy production is in the best interest of governments worldwide to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. In answer to that, many countries offer subsidies and grant schemes to individuals and businesses to install both PV systems and EV charging infrastructure.

In the UK, the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) scheme requires large energy suppliers to offer a tariff for electricity exported to the grid by, for example, solar panels. For you, this can mean a new source of income for excess energy generated by your PV systems. Regarding EV charging grant schemes, the Workplace Charging Scheme and the On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme  both provide support for the installation of EV chargers.

Often, grants and subsidies for PV systems and EV charging stations can be combined, which can further reduce your costs.

Help balance the energy grid

PV systems are often set up together with an energy storage system. That way, the generated solar power can also be used after the sun stops shining and at peak times.

With an energy storage system, you can increase your self-consumption share and make yourself even more independent of electricity suppliers and fluctuating prices. But PV storage systems can be costly; for 10 kWh of storage capacity, the cost can go up to 10 000 EUR, i.e. around 1 000 EUR per kWh of storage capacity.

In addition, PV storage systems require a lot of space and ventilation, and their operation consumes energy.

Electric vehicles: batteries on wheels

 

If you offer EV charging with solar energy, why not use EV batteries for a good cause? This is exactly what the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology aims for. So, how does it work?

An EV charging station with V2G technology makes bi-directional charging possible making the vehicle&#;s battery into energy storage. You can store generated solar power in your electric car fleet during the day and make use of it during the night if necessary. This makes the expensive purchase of an energy storage system unnecessary.

The share of renewable energy is steadily increasing, and so is the volatility of the energy grid. Since energy storage systems alone won&#;t be sufficient in the future, electric vehicle batteries are becoming increasingly important in helping balance consumption peaks and keep the energy grid healthy and efficient.

From opportunity to necessity

While there are no legal requirements in many countries for PV system installations, only incentivisation with subsidies and grants, we can expect such laws to be introduced by governments worldwide.

Some countries already have such legislation in place. For example, the Renewable Energy Act in France introduces an obligation for public car parks with over 80 parking spaces to install PV systems, otherwise risking severe penalties. Covered parking spaces are the perfect place to combine PV systems with EV charging.

Virta is one of the fastest-growing charging networks for electric vehicles. We help you plan your EV charging operations and support you from the beginning with site analyses and technical feasibility in connection with the construction of PV systems.

We have a unified solution for all types of EV charging &#; from workplace to public charging and our smart energy management tools ensure you always have the electricity you need.

Contact our sales experts now to talk about the potential of your business!

By Nashvinder Singh and Jigeesha Upadhaya

Energy storage systems capture surplus energy during times of high production/low demand and store it for use during times of low production/high demand. While not a new technology, energy storage is rapidly gaining traction as a way to provide a stable and consistent supply of renewable energy to the grid.

The energy storage system of most interest to solar PV producers is the battery energy storage system, or BESS. While only 2&#;3% of energy storage systems in the U.S. are BESS (most are still hydro pumps), there is an increasing move to integrate BESS with renewables.

What is a BESS and what are its key characteristics?

Largely, BESS systems use lithium-ion batteries to store electricity. They can be used either as stand-alone or coupled with renewable energy sources.

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Main characteristics used by the industry and which vary with different BESS chemistries are:

• Rated Power Capacity
• Rated Energy Capacity
• Depth of Discharge (DOD)
• Storage Duration
• Cycle Life
• State of Charge (SOC)
• Round-Trip Efficiency
• System Life
• Safety Monitoring and Control

What are the major parts of a BESS?

A typical BESS includes:

• Battery modules &#; connected in series and parallel for required capacity.
• Storage enclosure with thermal management.
• Power conversion system (PCS) &#; All the clusters from the battery system are connected to a common DC bus and further DC bus extended to PCS.
• Battery management system (BMS), which continuously monitors the voltage, temperature, fire warning and state of charge (SOC) of the battery. It regulates the charging and discharging power depending on input signal.
• Energy management system (EMS) &#; The control logic is executed at EMS. It will provide input signal to PCS for charge/discharge depending on control logic requirement.

A BESS is an energy source, and like any energy source that feeds the grid, it must be managed and controlled. At Nor-Cal, we provide SCADA and EMS solutions for monitoring and controlling BESS per site requirements.

Why is integration of BESS gaining traction?

BESS systems are gaining traction for both technical and commercial reasons. Technically, they provide immense benefits to the grid:

• Use in emergency response systems or for storm outages
• Frequency regulation
• Grid stability
• Reduction of grid congestion
• Ramp rate control
• Energy arbitrage
• Peak shaving
• Black start &#; providing quick energy or stabilizing energy to get the grid started at a good response rate

What's most exciting is the use of BESS in helping the world transition to renewable energy.

Renewables are intermittent in nature&#;production goes up when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, but goes down when the day is overcast or the winds die down. On the current grid, on-demand gas power is still needed to fill in the gaps. As more renewables come online and begin contributing to the grid in order to meet ambitious clean energy goals, energy storage technologies, including BESS, can help ensure a stable, steady supply of energy.

Being able to store excess energy is also a financial benefit to renewable energy producers. Instead of having to curtail production, at the request of the grid or utility, that curtailment can be stored. When production later goes down, that stored energy is available for sale to fill in the gaps.

Another reason for the rise in BESS systems is the affordability of lithium-ion batteries. The prices for this technology are going down and are expected to go even lower. This is moving the needle away from older existing energy storage systems and towards BESS.

How important is the siting of BESS?

The siting of any power generation resource is important, but the immense flexibility of BESS systems mean they can be installed and utilized in any number of ways:

• Front-of-meter or behind-the-meter
• Near to the loads/energy sources or independent/standalone
• Co-located with variable renewable energy resources
• Used to augment traditional power generation

There are exciting residential, commercial and industrial behind-the-meter applications. Consumers with rooftop solar panels can store excess energy using a BESS, and then have that power available as a backup. The California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA) estimates behind-the-meter battery deployments in the 2&#;2.5 GW range through the end of .

What are the possible configurations?

There are a variety of configurations available for BESS depending on siting. BESS can be utilized in a standalone setup, in which the BESS takes electricity from the grid when the supply is high and sends it back when the demand is high. For PV + Storage systems, four types of configurations are used.

Independent

In this, both PV and storage systems are not physically co-located and do not share common components or control strategies. Being independent, storage responds to overall grid conditions to provide peak capacity, shift energy from off-peak to on-peak periods and provide ancillary services. Although the storage could charge from PV energy, it would only do so when grid conditions made this an economic option.

DC Coupled (Flexible Charging)

In this case, the PV and storage is coupled on the DC side of a shared inverter. The inverter used is a bi-directional inverter that facilitates the storage to charge from the grid as well as from the PV.

DC Coupled (PV-Only Charging)

This configuration is similar to DC coupled, but the storage can be charged using PV only, not from grid electricity. This is also known as the DC tightly coupled configuration.

AC Coupled

In this case, PV and storage are co-located with two separate inverters. BESS is charged by converting the PV electricity from DC to AC and then back to DC at the BESS inverter for the BESS to store it. Since there are no shared components, the storage can still act independently of the PV system.

AC coupled configurations are typically used for existing PV systems, because it's easier to just add on a second inverter, add a BESS, and then use the existing circuitry to integrate the BESS into that. DC coupled systems are more common for new PV + Storage installations.

How are battery applications typically categorized?

Battery applications are typically categorized on the basis of energy and power.

• Energy supply interactions happen on a slower timescale, where large amounts of energy are supplied or pulled from the grid. These are referred to as "energy" applications. These applications include energy arbitrage and energy time-shift. Since energy response typically has a deeper depth of discharge on a consistent basis, these applications have a steeper degradation curve for some chemistries.
• Power applications normally transpire on a much faster timescale and are employed to support real-time control of the power grid. Power applications include frequency response, load ramping and voltage support.

Each BESS has a rated energy capacity measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh) or megawatt-hours (MWh), as well as rated power capacity measured in kilowatts (kW) or megawatts (MW). Most BESS manufacturers also provide Depth of Discharge (DOD), which indicates the percentage of the battery that has been discharged relative to the overall capacity of the battery. Staying within maximum recommended DOD is important for optimal performance and lifespan of the battery.

For example, if the manufacturer of a 100 kWh battery recommends a maximum DOD of 80 percent, you shouldn't use more than 80 kWh from the battery without recharging.

These ratings, the internal chemical structure of the battery itself, the cycle frequency, and battery health all play a critical role in determining if a BESS is suitable for a specific application. For energy applications, you will need to pay attention to different parameters than you would when using a BESS system for power applications.

How can Nor-Cal help with integrating BESS systems for PV projects?

Energy storage is the future of solar PV, and we are right there to help our customers with the latest developments. We coordinate with BMS manufacturers and integration companies to implement the necessary EMS requirements into our SCADA systems. We can also ensure that the BESS meets utility and ISO requirements.

If you need a PV-Solar SCADA provider who can help you take advantage of all the benefits BESS systems have to offer, contact us today. Whether you have a PV + Storage integration or a standalone BESS, we'd be happy to talk with you about your options. Schedule a call with us today.

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