Buying an electric car can be one of the best financial decisions you’ll ever make. The running costs are extremely low when compared to a normal petrol or diesel car, and coupled with your home solar panel system, you can capture excess solar energy to increase your return on investment.
Join us as we break down the costs of charging your electrical car and uncover the real potential of owning an electric car.
Having a home solar system is a great investment, but how do you maximise the value of your system?
The minimum value you can get is selling back to the grid with Aurora Energy’s feed in tariff set at 8.883 cents/kWh.
A better option is when you can use the power you generate yourself, which saves you the amount it would cost to buy from the grid. Off-peak power with Aurora* (which covers the period your solar system will produce the most) is 15.551¢/kWh, roughly double the feed in tariff.
If you add a battery, you can use your solar power at night and potentially get that saving up to 33.399¢/kWh*. Now we’re talking!
But there’s an even better way to use your solar power that blows all these options out of the water and yes I spoiled it in the heading, but the big savings come by using your solar to charge an electric vehicle!
Doing maths for charging your Electric Vehicle is pretty easy
If a normal petrol car uses a very economical 7L per 100km, at 190c per L today, that’s going to cost you 13.3¢ per km.
But to take the Tesla Model 3 as an example where 1kWh will get you 7km which when you extrapolate that out to the fuel you’d be saving, works out to be 93.1¢/kWh! That’s more than 10 times the value of the feed in tariff!
So in summary:
| Solar saving | Cents per kWh | Compared to Feed in tariff |
| Feed in tariff | 8.883 | x 1 |
| Off-Peak | 15.551 | x 1.75 |
| Peak | 33.399 | x 3.76 |
| EV Charging | 93.1 | x 10.5 |
Of course we cross our fingers that petrol prices may go down, but equally I’ve been pretty generous with the car fuel consumption, but even if you play around with those numbers the EV charging is still going to come out way ahead in terms of saving.
Another way of looking is EV versus Petrol
Petrol – 1000Klm @ 7L per 100Klms is 70L @1.90 = $133.
EV using excess solar is 1000klm / 7 = 142.85 Kwh x 8.883 in missed feed in tariff = $12.61
Hmm $133 versus $12.61…..
(*Aurora Energy prices are Residential Time of Use – Tariff 93: current as of 2nd November, 2022)
If you’re interested to explore the potential for electric vehicle charging at your place or to understand the costs of a solar panel system, please get in touch with us today.
