This is a short article on upcoming Solar/EV tech (rolling out in 2024).
We just got email from our current solar smart control box maker (Enphase). It was installed on the side of our house by a company called Lumio along with the 24 panel solar array on our roof back in the first half of November 2022. Even in the gloom of a PNW winter, the array made for a nice cut in our electric bill, and as we move into “Sleepless in Seattle” territory we’re seeing the power generation rise steadily as the days get longer.
The email had a link to the Enphase web site announcing a new integration release called Bidirectional EV (and a lot more) charging. (you’ll need to scroll down a bit on the main page).
Basically you can connect your solar panel array, your EV through your (Enphase?) EV charger, the grid, one ore more home level battery packs, a fuel cell, an emergency generator, etc. all through an Enphase smart controller and it will juggle everything (talk about a belt and multiple suspenders approach!). Since Enphase seems to be a major supplier of control equipment (my brother down in SoCal has one in his solar installation — first installed quite a few years ago), I’d expect a lot of other solar panel installers will be offering Enphase or some equivalent bi-directional controller once it comes out.
I should find out who makes the micro-inverters for this. We already have 24 in our installation (one for each panel). I expect a lot more micro-inverters are coming in the future. There will be a lot of DC converting to AC and vice versa going on here!
I hope this is fair use: