A solar pv system for your business could save you money and decrease the carbon footprint from your company. In addition to being great on its own, solar offers even greater financial and environmental rewards when coupled with battery energy storage or electric vehicle (EV) charging. Here’s how these assorted technologies work in conjunction with each other to optimize sustainability and control costs.

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Battery Energy Storage and Solar-Enabled EV Charging

But before we get into all of that, it’s best to start by getting a better understanding of these technologies and how they work with solar in the first place.

A battery energy storage system is a clean energy asset that you can install on your property to absorb solar-generated power and save it until needed. In general, you do this when the solar system is generating more electricity than your building is consuming. A battery storage system will typically hold multiple individual batteries in a weatherproof box that’s usually located next to a building or parking lot.

Property owners install electric vehicle charging stations to be able to serve the needs of EV drivers who must recharge their cars when on the move. Commercial sites, municipalities and multi-unit residential developments are just some of the places where installing EV chargers can make sense. When installed alongside solar arrays, under the right conditions, the system generates sufficient energy to power the chargers.

How to Use an EV as a Solar Battery

Electric vehicle, in some cases, can also play a role like and ES providing the function of storage if it stores excesses solar electricity into its battery and dispatch that to help powering load back to the building. It’s what the industry has termed bidirectional charging, and for more customers trying to optimize their clean energy assets, it’s become even more important. All electric vehicles, and not all EV chargers, support bidirectional charging capabilities at this time, but that is expected to change in the next few years.

Why Solar, Storage and EV Charging Go Together Well

Together, you can access more benefits than if you used only one of these assets – solar system combined with battery energy storage and electric vehicle (EV) charging. Here are a couple examples of how using more than one technology can benefit the environment and improve the bottom line.

Reduced Energy Costs

When you have an onsite solar system with energy storage, the utility can use that asset in a flexible way, to decide when it can best use the power that comes off of it. Typically, solar production starts when the sun comes up in the morning and there's a midday peak after covering makes that day's high point before tapering off as we head towards evening and sundown.

From an energy storage standpoint, any extra energy that’s produced beyond what you consume on site can be banked and used to meet your energy needs when the sun isn’t shining as bright (or is not in the sky at all), preventing or minimizing grid electricity consumption.

This is particularly handy when you’re looking to hedge against time-of-use (TOU) utility charges and get to use stored energy when electricity prices are highest. Energy storage additionally allows “peak shaving” by incorporating the stored energy to reduce your building’s monthly peak energy usage, which is often billed at a higher rate by utilities.

Practically and cost-wise, those same kinds of street smarts can help save money and lower your carbon footprint. Supplementing solar power with energy storage reduces your dependence on the grid (and therefore, fossil fuels).

Optimized EV Charging

Converting an on-grid solar-plus-storage system to EV charging comes with useful synergies. First of all, it enables you to make greater use of clean solar power over energy derived from fossils that’s purchased off the grid to effectively power your EV charging stations — enabling truly “green” technology and a stronger sustainability profile for your operation.

Another major benefit is in the savings on costs from load management. When you select Grasen as your provider of EV charging solutions, you use Grasen and our intelligent adaptive energy management platform that operates as a single system those solar, storage, and electric vehicle (EV) charging systems.

With our patented Adaptive Load Management® algorithms charging happens without the risk of grid overload or high prices due to peak demand fees charged by your utility. These savings enable Grassan to build more charging stations and require fewer infrastructure upgrades, which means you could spend up to 60% less on deployment.

Energy Resiliency Through Microgrids

Connecting solar, energy storage and EV charging technologies in a microgrid enables your building to be resilient by powering itself through utility disturbances such as prolonged power outages due to weather or equipment failure.

A microgrid can isolate from the larger power grid and leverage a mix of solar array, stored battery energy, and traditional generator to run critical operations in your building (which may also include EV chargers if your business relies on electrified fleet vehicles).

Grasen manages microgrid energy assets to keep our lights on, which we can do seamlessly, cyclically switching between solar power brought in by the battery and electricity generated from fuel sources.

Virtual Power Plant Participation

These are your energy generating devices (also known as distributed energy resources, or DERs) on sit that allow you to partake in the VPP. These are groupings of DERs that belong to companies and institutions like yours.

In addition to the value that VPP participants can gain from their DERs as described above, they also have the ability to extract financial potential out of them and tap into new revenue opportunities. Opportunities are available such as joining demand response programs, which compensate companies for reducing their energy use when grid demand is high.

Relax and Let Grasen Give You The Solar, Energy Storage and EV Charging Power Combo!

Want to combine solar, battery energy storage, EV charging, or more on your property? Our professionals at Grasen can tailor a system to meet your financial and environmental aspirations. Start now.