Solar setup to charge CT

[mrcyber]

I have a detached garage which will house my CT. Thinking about installing an off grid solar system to charge CT. Is this make sense and if so what would be the minimum system needed. Would the Tesla wall batteries be part of the install. I’m a real newbie when it comes to solar. Thanks in advance. K

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[TexasRaider]

There are a lot of variables when it comes to solar.
1) The least expensive was to go is via your utility provider. Buying solar credits aka “using only solar power”. Because generally it’s only $0.05 more than normal/general power.
2) Professional Solar installation is generally the price of a new roof, at least to power your CT. (Very rough estimate.)

If you are concerned about power reliability with your utility- pay the extra and have solar installed at your home. But know this … it’s NOT cost effective in general locations/situations. You are purchasing peace of mind and reliability.

Of course, let’s hear from others from the forum.

 

[cattledog]

You could easily spend 100k plus by the time you are done if you really want a no limits type of setup and it’s installed by a professional to code with a city inspection.

 

[desertmarcy]

I'm also interested in hearing if others have done this since I'm looking into having another garage built but there is no room for it right near my house or other garage. So it would have to go a distance away and I'd like it built to be off-grid. We already have solar on the main property, the problem is housing for my increasing number of Teslas. I have 2 Cyberbeasts and wonder if it would be feasible to power the garage with one of them with solar but without getting Powerwalls. Especially since Tesla still hasn't made powering your home with the Cybertruck work with Powerwalls.

 

[RoboTaxi]

Roughly 400w of solar will get you 5 miles a day with a battery bank pictured to take the solar and put it in your truck. The battery bank has a MAX solar input of 1200 watts of solar. So for about $1600 you could “roughly” make 15 miles a day. Cool setup for a Prepper in a SHTF scenario, but that’s about it.

 

[UberNoob]

I live in sunny FL. I have 38 Tesla 400w panels (or a 15.2 kw system) 2 Tesla 7.5 kw solar inverters. This is an on grid system. The system produces around 1500 kw a month and is enough to fully offset my house use and keep the truck charged for how much I drive.

My advice for an off grid would be that either you will be filling a battery or only charging only while the sun is out. Using a Cybertruck as a full time battery is not cost effective as you are doing more charge cycles degrading the trucks battery. It’s better to use a powerwall Tesla or another brand (LFP) cells for that. I once read somewhere that Tesla battery’s are good for something like 5,000 full charge cycles, unsure if this apply to the 4680s in the truck.

The Tesla wall charger is 240v x48 amp (11,520 watt max output or 11.5 kw. If you want the most charge speed around 24 miles per hour charged. your solar system would have to provide at least that in addition to what ever you want to power in the building. My 15.2kw system costed me around 34k after my tax rebate of 16k when there was solar tax break avail.

 

[mongo]

I have a detached garage which will house my CT. Thinking about installing an off grid solar system to charge CT. Is this make sense and if so what would be the minimum system needed. Would the Tesla wall batteries be part of the install. I’m a real newbie when it comes to solar. Thanks in advance. K

What does your daily/ weekly charging energy consumption look like? (Needed kWh of production which drives array size)
What percentage of the time would the truck be charging while the sun is out? (Impacts needed kWh of storage)

 

[jeniferkey]

Maybe search Will Prowse on YouTube and watch his videos. Batteries, inverter and solar can do what you need for a reasonable amount now, but still years on the payback depending on what you pay for electric. In Texas Tesla offers a plan that lets you charge your vehicle from midnight to noon for $15 a month. That offer beats us trying solar. On the other hand I have a. Off grid place with solar panels and I keep debating adding the inverter and battery so I can charge when I’m out there.

 

[mrcyber]

Maybe search Will Prowse on YouTube and watch his videos. Batteries, inverter and solar can do what you need for a reasonable amount now, but still years on the payback depending on what you pay for electric. In Texas Tesla offers a plan that lets you charge your vehicle from midnight to noon for $15 a month. That offer beats us trying solar. On the other hand I have a. Off grid place with solar panels and I keep debating adding the inverter and battery so I can charge when I’m out there.

 

[Nine_block]

I built my own off grid solar setup just to charge our EVs. Why? Because I wanted to, it was fun, and I like the energy independence. I have 4x314 AH ecoworthy batteries, 12 400 watt panels, and a 12000XP V2 inverter. Used integra rack ground mount along my fence row in my small back yard. Doesn’t take up much space. Produces about 150-165 miles of range in my CT every 3 days, or 250 miles in our Juniper RWD premium. For the past 4 months it has almost exclusively powered our transportation needs. I love it. After the tax credit it was about 10k. I did it myself.

 

[chaosmarine92]

If it's off grid I would suggest learning how to diy it. By far the biggest cost of a solar install in the US is the labor. I've thought about making a small solar system connected to a ~10kwh battery to charge my truck and the rough cost I came up with was about 10k.

 

[Outdoors]

In short it isn't as easy as one thinks in a likely municipality. One needs to look at the number of panels to likely make a difference based on shading and ability to get a daily charge. Then based on that an appropriate sized inverter. A battery bank to help smooth out the charge profile. Sun goes in a and out. A battery bank will help charge while the sun goes out. All in simple terms. More detail than that.

Edit add: Check local municipal electric codes. Once one goes over a certain amount of juice on panels and inverters you need to have some type of inspection.

I do ^ and what I use on an off grid property. My battery bank is very large, and is backed up by a diesel generator, and a solar array.

 

[Eka]

Maybe search Will Prowse on YouTube and watch his videos. Batteries, inverter and solar can do what you need for a reasonable amount now, but still years on the payback depending on what you pay for electric. In Texas Tesla offers a plan that lets you charge your vehicle from midnight to noon for $15 a month. That offer beats us trying solar. On the other hand I have a. Off grid place with solar panels and I keep debating adding the inverter and battery so I can charge when I’m out there.

Will Prowse holds no punches. He tells the good, the bad, and the ugly. I love some of his stress tests. He used to lift his Model X on a car lift an an inverter pass/fail test.
https://www.youtube.com/@WillProwse/playlists

Biggest thing I will add is make sure all equipment is UL listed if you ever want to connect it to the grid at a later date.

Unfortunately due to tariffs, solar panels here in the US are well over 2X the cost elsewhere in the world.

My thoughts. Your mileage will vary. I would put in about 2X the amount of recharge you want in one day, and the fixed battery storage for it. This is to handle some cloudy days, and allow for time shifting power generation to when you can recharge. If the stationary battery gets near full in the middle of the day, charge a vehicle or few. If you want to go 100% off grid, you will need more than 2X to 5X+ daily use in solar generation, and 2X to 5X+ in battery storage. That is so you can cover all or most use on lightly cloudy days, and draw down on batteries on fully cloudy ones. If you can make your own intelligent controller, it can charge and draw on the CT batteries, thus reducing stationary battery needs. There might be some non Tesla systems that can do that vehicle battery use, but I don't know. And yes, you end up with excess power on many sunny days. This is because the excess generation capacity and storage capacity are needed to get through the longer cloudy stretches. Hence: I'd grid tie it to sell the excess if allowed in your area.

RethinkX did a study ( https://rethinkx.com/energy ) on what it takes to go 100% renewable solar and wind generation with battery storage. Without power sharing, most regions of the US would fall in that 2X to 5X daily user range. Obviously Alaska would go mostly with wind generation. This doesn't even use inputs from hydroelectric or geothermal.

 

[Eka]

This is a recharge strategy I've been thinking of using for dispersed camping. Because I can't directly charge the MY or CT battery from solar, I've been thinking of charging one of the larger ones of those "solar generators". Once it gets to 80% charge, I start charging the vehicle at it's maximum output rate until it is down to 60%. Then the system adjusts the charge rate so it is around what is being receive in. That adjusting of charge rate is maintained until solar input gets low enough it can't charge at some minimal effective rate for the vehicle, and keep the solar generator above 50%. Charging of the vehicle stops, and the solar generator's battery is recharged.

This could be all handled from an app run on an old cell phone or tablet if both car and solar generator allow the user to query their charge state and control charging via bluetooth. I've not dived into app software. I mostly write firmware for my light sculptures now. I'm not sure I want to write an app. I have more than enough on my plate fixing up dad's home. So feel free to do it.

A control system like this would work nicely for a remote off grid garage.

 

[Fvansan]

I have a detached garage which will house my CT. Thinking about installing an off grid solar system to charge CT. Is this make sense and if so what would be the minimum system needed. Would the Tesla wall batteries be part of the install. I’m a real newbie when it comes to solar. Thanks in advance. K
[/QUOTE sounds like you missed the 30% federal tax credit that ended last December 31. I have a 16 panel solar system that not only serves my home needs but also charges my car. It was about 13 grand after the tax credit.

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