When Jim Selgo moved into his home in Goodyear, Arizona, in 2019, he quickly had solar installed on his roof because he had a positive experience with solar energy on his previous home.
Less than a year later, he said he bought Selgo’s first electric vehicle, a Nissan Leaf, motivated to take further action against climate change. He hasn’t paid for electricity or gas since.
“With solar energy, you get the advantage of what you produce at home,” he said. “Adding an EV will only increase your savings and increase the value of the entire project.”
Selgo, a retired public school principal who now drives an electric Volkswagen ID.4 SUV, is just one of many people using solar power to power their electric vehicles with clean electricity, effectively sunlight. And it also goes the other way.
“It’s probably more common today for someone with a solar system to be interested in an electric vehicle because solar energy has been around longer,” said Becca Jones-Albertus, acting assistant secretary for renewable energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. . “But we know that many EV owners want to install a solar system to help with increased electricity usage and support more economical charging at home.”
According to DOE’s Office of Solar Energy Technologies, about 4.5 million of the 131 million households in the U.S. have added rooftop solar as its benefits become better known. And 2023 sets a record with more than 1 million EV sales in the US
Electric vehicles need to be plugged in to charge and start, but electricity from the grid often still comes from burning fossil fuels, negating some of the environmental benefits of switching to electricity. Solar can fix this. This is an important point because, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the two largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore climate change in the United States are electricity generation and transportation.
Residential solar power or photovoltaic systems convert sunlight into electricity when it hits a solar panel. If an owner chooses to purchase a set of batteries to pair with the panels, they can have a “bank” of energy that they can use constantly. Nearly a fifth of new residential solar systems in California, which dominates the U.S. rooftop solar market, were installed with batteries by 2022.
Automakers are seeing this crossover interest and are getting into the business a few years after Tesla acquired solar company SolarCity in 2016 and launched its solar roof division.
Many legacy auto companies are making efforts to connect customers with energy services, including solar installation contractors. GM Energy, the energy unit of General Motors, is an example. The automaker wants to provide a one-stop shop for customers looking for home charging, solar power and other energy management technologies.
“This is where we see everything working together,” said Derek Sequeira, GM Energy’s EV ecosystem director.
Hyundai Home helps the company’s EV customers choose home charging and solar solutions. Ford is also getting involved in this matter.
But access to rooftop solar is unequal, so the combination isn’t an option for all EV owners. According to the DOE office of solar energy, nearly half of homes in the U.S. either lack control over their roofs or feel they don’t have enough control over them due to location, space or orientation.
There is an effort to resolve this. Community solar projects allow tenants or apartment owners or other communities to have a stake in a small solar array. This type of solar energy is growing and contributed to overall record growth in U.S. solar capacity this year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Some utilities may also not want customers to generate more solar electricity than they need; because this means they will have to pay back the excess amount in the form of a loan.
Installation costs can also be prohibitive. A standard system can run a consumer $10,000 to $15,000 or more, according to the Center for Sustainable Energy, a nonprofit organization in San Diego, California.
But the cost is falling. In 2010, the cost of residential rooftop installation was $8.70 per watt. That figure drops to $3.16 per watt by 2022, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Federal incentives are making residential solar systems more affordable; At the same time, incentives also help the affordability of electric vehicles. The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August 2022, allows consumers to claim 30% of what they put into their system as a credit on their next federal tax bill.
Different states also offer different rebates and incentives. Selgo said his system cost $19,500, but he ended up paying around $12,500 after getting the 30 percent federal tax credit and $1,000 from the state of Arizona at the time.
Jerry Schotz purchased two electric vehicles in 2021. He was interested in renewable energy and wanted to go electric for all his household needs, including his electric lawn mower, so “Solar power makes perfect sense,” he said. He had it installed at his home in Champaign, Illinois, last year.
“Many people use solar energy just to power their homes, but we power our homes and cars with the same solar systems,” Schotz said. “When you think about the climate, we no longer use fossil fuels to drive on the road.”
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Alexa St. John is a climate solutions reporter for the Associated Press. Follow her on X, formerly on Twitter, @alexa_stjohn. Reach him at ast.john@ap.org.
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