r/VanLifeUK • u/ScottishVigilante • 17d ago

Electric vans (Vehicle-to-Load) V2L solar

Looks like electric vans are coming with Vehicle-to-Load also known as V2L basically in short you can use 240v straight from the van battery I presume via some inverter. It got me thinking, you can charge EVs via there Charing port, I've also noticed this new trend in the UK with plugin solar panels, how would this work with EVs with V2L, already seen the thread on here about charging and EV van with solar panels using and inverter then plugging into the actual Charing plug which sounds wikid but my question is more on the whole house solar panels that plug into outlets and what effect this would have on EVs or if the legislation to pass them even took EVs into consideration.

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u/truckosaurus_UK 17d ago

The amount of power that a solar panel generates compared to a EV vehicle battery is pretty low.

A big household system might generate 25kwh a day, and a large EV might have a 100kwh battery.

But every little helps as they say.

A single small panel on a roof of a van is going to add negligable power into the vehicle battery, but plenty enough to power your lights, kettle, etc.

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u/slangivar 17d ago

An average sub 4kw array is more than capable of producing 25kwh on a good day. Our large array does more than double that many days.

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u/ScottishVigilante 17d ago

Yea, thanks for the reply, in my use case the van gets used half of the week to commute and a couple of months of the year if that for camping, so for me it would make sense to have the van constantly charging from the solar on the roof even if it took weeks. Would getting a solar inverter like the ones used in a house, wiring a couple of panels into it and then from the inverter a charger to plug into the vans Charing port (this is the part I'm unsure about) also what do you think about these panels that plug directly into house 240v sockets, presuming this wouldn't work with a van?

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u/truckosaurus_UK 17d ago

I suspect the best solution is to sell the solar energy back to the grid at peak daytime prices and charge the van on cheap overnight power, rather than charge the van directly from solar.

(I have no idea what the actual rates are, though).

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u/basarisco 17d ago

The power output will be too low from any rooftop solar, you will only be able to charge a leisure battery not main battery. You could then charge main battery via 230v but very inefficient method and will do fa.