Charge your car with the sun!

We've recently boosted our green energy production with a further 60 solar panels on the two 'hangars', so we now produce almost as much electricity as we use over a year at the farm!

Problem is, we don't always need the 23kW of power we can generate on an early afternoon in May, our house and cottages being super-insulated and designed to make the most of the sun through their large windows and hot water heating solar thermal panels. So surplus power goes back to the grid...until now!

In February we swapped a fairly economic diesel car for a zero tailpipe emissions electric vehicle (EV), which can soak up our surplus solar power in its huge battery and provide us with free 'sun miles' now the days are getting longer and the sun brighter!

We have also installed an EV charge point on the outside wall of the Plant Room at the back of the cottages, and welcome all pure EV and plug-in hybrid guests to charge for free! The charger is a Type 2 (7kW) unit, so will typically add 20-25 miles of range per hour, depending on vehicle type.

We hope to add a further unit soon and will update via the blog. Our local area is increasingly well served for public EV charge points, mostly Type 2 (22kW) fast chargers and even a CHAdeMO (50kW) rapid charger in Balloch just 4 miles away.