Co-optimizing EV charging and solar to open a wealth of opportunities

Marina Hod, Managing Director, Americas, for Wevo Energy, explains how businesses, apartment dwellers, solar installers and charge point operators can all benefit from co-optimizing solar and EV charging.

Over half of all new generating capacity added to the U.S. grid last year was solar. A trend that has continued through 2024. Driving the solar boom are attractive federal policies like the solar Investment Tax Credits and Inflation Reduction Act, falling costs of solar modules and a growing demand for clean power among industrial and commercial (I&C) customers.

Solar adoption by corporates has expanded rapidly, with over half of all capacity installed since 2020, of which almost 19 GW is installed across 50,000 different facilities in North America.

Like solar, federal incentives and regulatory goals are also driving EV uptake. The U.S. has set a target for 50% of all new vehicles sold by 2030 to be electric. Key to meeting this target is

increasing workplace charging availability, as well as enabling EV charging at multi-dwelling units so that both commuters and apartment dwellers can benefit from EV use.

However, it’s fair to say that solar and EV charging installations are often seen as separate projects that take place within silos. Properly integrating and optimizing solar with EV charging tends to not happen due to a lack of awareness of the opportunities, benefits and technology involved. Today, if a site’s operators save money charging their EVs when the sun shines, it’s more through luck than by design of any proactive, intelligent energy management scheme.

When co-optimized with the transition to EV charging, the broad and growing adoption of solar presents opportunities for businesses and owners/occupiers of apartment complexes, in addition to charge point operators and installers. Co-optimizing solar and EV charging delivers a valuable solution that offers more than the sum of its parts.

Maximizing the economic benefits of solar plus EV

It’s perfectly possible to have both on-site solar and EV charging in place but not realize any economic benefits when there is no co-optimization using intelligent energy management in place. This scenario illustrates how co-optimizing solar and charging can deliver a cost saving of 66%.

Table: Charging scenarios with and without co-optimization of solar with charge points

By controlling the charging schedule, it’s possible to improve self-consumption of on-site solar and achieve dramatic cost savings. As well as enabling access to cheaper power, investing in on-site solar reduces a business’s exposure to pricing volatility as less power needs to be purchased on energy markets. On days when there is insufficient solar output to boost charging, the same co-optimization software can take advantage of time-of-use pricing from the utility by shifting charging to use the cheapest available grid power.

However, successfully co-optimizing solar plus EV requires more than simply charging when solar output is available.

Compared with simple residential installations that usually comprise a single charge point, EV charging in the workplace or for an apartment building typically involves managing multiple charge points. In addition, a commercial site will have more complex electrical infrastructure with varying loads that need to be managed intelligently. Additionally, different vehicles may have different charging requirements. For example, delivery vehicles may need rapid charging, while it may be okay to ‘slow charge’ employees’ cars so that they are sufficiently topped up by the end of the working day. It may be that the employer wishes to charge some staff money for charging their vehicles but provide free power to delivery vans or other users. This adds another layer of complexity to managing on-site EV charging. A smart system should be capable of prioritizing different vehicles or drivers, predicting charging patterns and billing, optimizing self-consumption.

Environmental and social wins

Investing in on-site solar generation makes economic sense and is also environmentally responsible. From an environmental, social and governance perspective, projects that support ‘additionality’ (adding physical low-carbon generation capacity to the grid) preserve more environmental integrity than offsetting emissions through carbon credits.

Self-consuming renewable power on-site for charging EVs, rather than exporting it, reduces transmission and distribution losses, easing grid congestion and the need for reinforcement. This again helps optimize usage of available infrastructure.

A 2023 survey by Boston Consulting Group found that 13% of EV owners had access to charging at work but not at home, which resulted in them charging mostly in the workplace. Employers that offer workplace charging use it to help attract and retain talent and build the company’s reputation for sustainability. Co-optimizing charging with solar delivers a highly cost-effective employee benefit.

According to Harvard, some 44 million Americans live in apartments. This is a huge emerging market for charge point operators and EV charging installers. With the help of regulatory ‘right-to-charge’ laws, this gives urgency to providing apartment dwellers with the same charging convenience that house owners enjoy. Whether there is solar on the building or not, managing multiple charge points for shared residential use requires similar sophisticated energy management platforms that co-optimize for solar and shared driver demand in workplace settings.

What’s in it for solar and EV charging installers and operators?

Solar plus EV charging makes for a great partnership when co-optimized to work hand-in-hand. That being said, the adoption of capable EV charging management systems is still at an early stage and awareness of the opportunities and benefits of combining these technologies is still low.

Providers who can deliver the intelligent layer of an integrated charge point management platform as part of an installation package, alongside solar and EV charging hardware, can demonstrate economic and environmental benefits that can truly differentiate their value proposition.

Solutions that optimize a site’s energy usage will future-proof it for EV charging from distributed energy assets. Whether installing on-site solar or EV charge points for multiple users, by developing expertise in energy management platforms, installers and charge point operators can deliver more value to their customers and stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

Notes to editor

Marina Hod, the author of this article, is the Managing Director of Americas at Wevo Energy, where she leads innovative solutions for EV charging management. With a strong background in energy and technology, she has held various leadership roles, including Product Management Director at Centrica and Manager of Demand Response Operations at Direct Energy Business.

Marina’s career also includes founding the UK Demand Response Association and serving as Director of Market Development at KiWi Power. Her expertise lies in optimizing electric vehicle integration with the grid, focusing on how EV flexibility can enhance grid stability. A recognized thought leader, she frequently speaks at industry conferences, advocating for the role of electric vehicles in addressing demand fluctuations in energy systems.