Our EV battery stores our excess solar

Like many others, Deborah and Kristian have found switching to an electric car far less difficult than it is often portrayed:

“Driving for us is almost 100% free and clean. We charge the car to 80% in 2 days using excess energy generated by the sun alone. We never use the full range or pay to charge unless we were to make more than 2 trips to Sydney or Newcastle in a week” says Kristian.

“We drove 20,011km in our first year, which would have cost us nearly $3,500 at $2 per litre in an equivalent petrol car. Apart from cutting our fuel costs, buying the car on a novated lease made it a lot cheaper, and then there is the sheer joy of driving it! Most people don’t realise that you have no transmission, no drive shaft, so you get a lot more room inside an EV and no clunky gear changes.”

Deborah and Kristian bought their Hyundai Ioniq 5 in December 2023 on their return to Australia from living overseas, and have taken it to Melbourne, Nambucca Heads (twice) and the Gold Coast.

“On the east coast range anxiety is not a thing. We’ve found plenty of chargers along these routes and we tend to stop every few hours, stretch our legs and get a coffee, even if the car still has 50% charge. This means it only takes about 7-10 minutes before you can be on your way again.”

The EV and solar panels are very complementary, as Deborah explains: “on a sunny summer day we can produce 5 times what our house uses in daylight hours, with the rest we can charge the car to almost 50% per day. So, we look at this as using the EV as a battery to store our excess solar energy!”

Deborah and Kristian have an 8.8kW solar system, installed in March 2024 by Platinum Solar and in September added a heat pump water heater.

“At the Electrify Bouddi Launch Party we met the team from DUX, which gave us the impetus to replace our 15 year old off-peak electric water heater.  We now consume about one-quarter of the electricity used by the previous system and it is almost always fully powered by the sun. By locating the heat pump outside, we also managed to free up some room in the laundry!”

High on Deborah and Kristian’s agenda is switching to an induction cooktop and making their Killcare home easier to keep warm in winter.  While the north facing house would make a perfect passive house, like many in the area, their house often lacks winter sun on their rooftop and there are too many places for draughts to enter.  Kristian is also keen to make better use of their greywater: “Even though we have a lot of native plants, watering the garden is still a significant proportion of our water bill, and all that greywater is just going down the drain, not being utilised.”

For Deborah and Kristian, the changes they have made make financial sense as well as reducing their impact on the environment.

“In 2.5 years, the savings we make in fuel costs have almost covered the upfront cost of purchasing and installing the solar panels and EV charger. And this isn’t counting electricity savings from the heat pump!”

They have clearly learnt a lot to pass on to the rest of the community. Speaking about the difference in driving an EV compared to a petrol or diesel vehicle, Kristian notes that “all the hills and tight corners in this area make for great regenerative breaking. From our house to the bottom of Ward’s Hill Road is 3.2km, but if we take it easy going up The Scenic Road and let the re-gen take over down Ward’s Hill Road we only use 1km of range.”

Find useful information to help you make a decision about getting an Electric Vehicle.

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