BMW Car Port

The Solarge is on it’s way

A while back we at Complete Renewables invented the ‘Solarge’. This was in response to the growing demand for electric vehicles. The idea is simple: install solar panels on your garage’s roof and charge your electric car. In practice though there are complications. Firstly when the sun’s out, it’s likely your car will also be out. Secondly the set-up costs were proving to be expensive.

However we did create a few clever solutions. To combat the badly timed sunshine a Sun Bat was employed. This device connects directly to the solar panels and essentially acts as a large battery. This allows the user to capture the sun’s power during the day, then discharge at night. Furthermore as the system is grid connected it would be eligible for the Feed-In tariff. So whilst you charge you car, you would also receive payment for doing so. Put simply you get paid to fill-up your car. Now compare that to the costs of a petrol or diesel tank of fuel and you’ve got quite a good deal.

Lamentably we’ve not managed to get the idea of the ground, we’ll need to wait for electric cars to gain popularity.

However whilst we’ve been getting on with other forms of renewable energy, it appears BMW have been thinking along the same lines. In preparation for their upcoming range of electric vehicles they’ve been working on electric car ports. Admittedly the name isn’t as catchy as ‘The Solarge’, but it sounds essentially like the same thing.

Well good luck to BMW, if they need a hand with development I’m sure they’ll get in touch. If you’d like to read more about this click here to see the original press release. Or if you are interested in a Solarge yourself, then please email me for more information