Solar For My Crosstrek Hybrid?

Back before the Admiral and I left Connecticut and moved cross country to be here in Tucson, we realized we probably needed a new vehicle.

 

At that time, the car industry was struggling with inventory and that was driving used car prices through the roof. As crazy as it sounds, at that time, it was actually cheaper for us to buy a brand new Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid than a used one.

 

We were renting in Mystic CT and had no capability of installing a solar power system for a charger (or even a charger actually).

 

But, it was fun to think it through a bit and I wanted to share some of the thoughts about how to figure out what I would need with regards to how big of a solar power system I would need.

 

I need to preface this calculation discussion with a warning that I make some very basic assumptions that might not apply to everyone’s situation. This is for illustrative purposes only…

 

First, I needed to understand a few basic things about the car and my daily drive. I needed to know the amount of power the car would use per mile, and the average miles per day I would drive the car.

 

The Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid has a 17 mile range and a 8.8kWh battery. Dividing 17 into 8.8 gives me 0.518 kWh/mile.

 

Our drive from home to work would be about 9.1 miles, so daily commuting for work would be 18.2 miles without errands- which in my case would be more than the range of the battery so I would use the entire battery capacity in my calculations.

 

Next I needed to understand how much peak solar exposure a solar power system would receive in that location. For Mystic it might be 4.4 hours/day. Here in Tucson maybe more like 5 hours a day to play it ‘safe’. (I’ll use Tucson)

 

So, the idea is I need to generate the full capacity of the battery in 5 hours so 8.8kWh divided by 5 hours = 1.76kW system would be needed to fully charge the battery each day.

 

Sort of.

 

That would be a great calculation and number if everything was as efficient as possible. But, this is real life and there are several inefficiencies. Everytime we take power from one place to another (like from the solar panels to a battery or from that battery to the car’s battery) we lose some power. 

 

To cover those efficiency issues, I would choose to look at possibly a 20% increase in size of the solar power system. So instead of a 1.76kW system, it might be more like 2.1 or 2.2kW.

 

This system would require a battery and that is a calculation for another day…

 

If you are looking at possibly getting solar power for your Tucson home, I am cooking up a book that will help you understand all of the questions you might need to ask before moving forward.

You might want to check out the Tucson Solar Insider Desk Guide for Buying Solar and get on the notification list for when I release it by clicking here.

 

Be Good!

Curtis