Amid all this talk about improving the electrical grid before we can move to

[Skidmore]

to green power, I have a question. If we are to purchase electric cars in the future, why can't every home have a solar power station outside? Why not? How much juice does it take to recharge the batteries in such a car. Couldn't we produce our own individually. Doesn't have to be connected to the grid, does it?

[ladjf]

1. Delaying tactics by the coal and oil industries. nt

[End Of The Road]

2. Found a link about this

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/05/home-solar-panels-can-charge-your-electric-car/1

I didn't watch the video, but evidently this person is doing just what you suggest.

Lemme know how it is.

[FarCenter]

3. You don't need a new grid for electric cars

Charge them at night when the other electrical demands are low. Night time use is way below afternoon and evening peaks.

No improvements to the grid would be needed for several years after electric car sales get well into the millions per year.

And by changing street lighting and other outdoor lighting to LEDs, we can save enough electricity to delay grid updates even further.

[HillbillyBob]

9. Yes street lighting eats enormous power.

Most of those sodiums are 250 watts, multiply that over the hours they run and the millions of them there are. We had the one out here shut off.
I put in motion sensor lights with inexpensive(comparatively ) LED floods from Sams Club costing about 18$ ea but they give about 60 watts worth of light for 3.5 watts(yes really). They last long and give a decent light used in pairs, I mean we don't want to light up a baseball field.They are supposed to be good for 20,000 hrs and on the motion sensors they are not on all that much.

Our local power co is now talking about replacing street type lights with LEDs those cost but they use 100 watts instead of 250 or more.

[NoNothing]

4. Yes it *could* possibly be done

In much the same way that everyone *could* have their own coal-powered electrical generators. But it is far less efficient than a small number of mega-installations. Probably even more so with solar, where small factors like orientation and maintenance can have an enormous impact on production.

[zipplewrath]

5. For a Volt

"It takes about 12 kilowatt-hours of electricity to charge the car after a 50-mile trip."

That's for a Volt. You'd need about 2 Kw of solar cells for 6 hours to fully recharge your car. But if you only commute say 20 miles, you're gonna need only about 40% of that. So you need about 5 kilowatt hours typically. A kilowatt solar panel runs around $2000. So you're gonna want about $10,000 worth of charging capacity. That's ignoring any efficiency losses due to storage or voltage conversions.

In the long run it might be cheaper to just buy it from the local utility, unless you can leverage other solar assets or applications.

[HillbillyBob]

10. Ouch, put that way, it is expensive

counting the cost of the car.
How does it add up compared to cost of car and fuel over the life of the vehicle that is if they last about the same length of time/ miles?

Would you want to put in a dedicated set up for the cars?

I ask because for like us we live out in the boonies, and we are going to put in several solar pumping stations for irrigation, considering where the well and springs are they have plenty of light, and putting one huge array on or near the house would take up valuable crop space.

Because of the voltage drops over distance we would have to have almost a kw more just to do the lengths.
Outback makes pure sine inverter/chargers and are supposed to have least waste if you are running near capacity. To charge cars or wells would be surges.
Wouldn't it be better to have dedicated inverters to charge various large loads?

[zipplewrath]

13. $40 a week

I spend about $40 a week on gas. That's about $2000 a year. So you need 5 years to get back your 10 grand. And that presumes no maintenance costs over those years. Solar panels do "wear out" in the sense that they become less efficient over time. And you're presuming you "never" buy gas, or charge up using any other power source.

As for you local set up, a big part of the problem is the voltage the device needs to have, and the voltage the panels generate. They are rarely the same so there will be losses in the conversions. The optimum solution is to design the device around the source so the voltage matches.

[sally cat]

6. "How much juice does it take to recharge the batteries in such a car." Some portable solar panels

can barely recharge a cell phone battery. I doubt you could recharge a car battery with an entire roof covered by solar panels.

[haifa lootin]

12. Yes, you're right I missed your post first time around...I said the same in post 11

:-)

[sally cat]

14. I've been checking into solar panels for when we go camping, and was disappointed in their

limitations. Apparently you can hook together two of the folding eight panel units ($300 each!) and get enough juice to recharge an Asus EEE netbook, but that's the best any of them can do. And that takes all day.

[HillbillyBob]

7. First off we got sunk in 2001/2/3 we have sort of reached

balance..not doing so well, but the lights are on.

Its a total electric house which we are turning into LEED Platinum.
Hey everyone has to have a hobby right?

Since our income is so screwed we are making our own raises by making the bills lower we have cut our power bill by 3/4 in 3 1/2 yrs.
We are trying to get it down to where we can put in solar power.
The only things that were major purch were the Front loader and the dishwasher the rest is small projects mostly 50-100$ in cost and since I am partly disabled if I can manage most anyone can.
The easiest and fastest return was insulated / black out curtain liners 20-25$ per window and take advantage of solar gain or blocking.

We want to get to the point whre we can plug in a hybrid and run our own power.

[deaniac21]

8. This should be very cost effective.

[haifa lootin]

11. Here's the simplest answer to your question: If that was a feasible solution,

it would be way easier to just put solar cells on the roof of your electric car and skip all the batteries and hookups.

(yes I'm ignoring night time for illustrative purposes)..

problem is there is not enough solar energy coming down from the sun in an area equal to the size of a vehicle to run it. Well, for all practical purposes anyway...this is made very clear by the most efficient solar powered cars yet built...they compete in 'races' every year or so and they CAN travel using only sunshine for power, but they have virtually no payload and barely manage to move their own weight around. A solar collector of, say, 6 by 10 feet can only collect about one horsepower under ideal conditions. Not quite NASCAR material...
:shrug:

[gmoney]

15. Well, maybe we invest in upgrading the grid?

Might create a few jobs even... whodathunit?