How does commercial EV charging work with solar and battery storage?

Q: How does commercial EV charging work with solar and battery storage?

In an integrated system, solar generates during the day to offset EV charging electricity costs, the battery stores surplus solar and discharges during peak EV charging events to manage demand, and energy management software coordinates all three systems in real time — automatically optimising for electricity cost, demand thresholds, and available solar generation.

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Integrating solar, battery storage, and EV charging creates a system where each component improves the economics of the others. Solar reduces the cost of electricity consumed by EV chargers during daylight hours. Battery storage manages demand peaks from simultaneous EV charging events, preventing spikes from being recorded on the utility meter. Energy management software coordinates the charging and discharging of the battery, the output of the solar system, and the queuing of EV charger sessions — automatically and without manual intervention.

This configuration delivers three financial benefits simultaneously: solar reduces energy cost per kWh consumed by EVs, the battery reduces demand charges from fleet charging events, and the combined federal incentive stack — Clean Technology ITC for solar and potentially for storage and EV infrastructure — reduces net capital cost. Ontario's commercial electricity tariffs, which include both TOU energy charges and demand charges, make all three components more financially valuable than in tariff structures without demand pricing.

At Green Integrations, solar, battery, and EV charging are planned as a single integrated system rather than three separate projects. The EV load profile is included in the solar sizing model. The battery is sized to address both solar self-consumption and EV peak demand management. All three systems are commissioned and monitored together under a unified energy management platform.

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