Audi Centre Centurion has something new for Audi e-tron owners. Not only has it utilised the power of the sun to offset its own energy consumption and charge electric vehicles on-premises. It also offers a smaller home-based solution. This means that if you’ve just bought an Audi e-tron electric vehicle, you needn’t rely wholly on the national grid to charge your vehicle.
SMA Solar Technologies from Germany and locally-based ANH Technologies have partnered up on the hardware side to provide the equipment and installation expertise, according to Peter Preusse, the dealership’s managing director.
The future is looking bright for EVs in SA
Prospective Audi e-tron owners that want to use the sun for their charging purposes – and aren’t already equipped with a solar solution at their residence – can pick up what is apparently a world-first.
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The home solar charger package comes with all the components you would need, according to a TopAuto report. That includes the 3-phase 22kW solar charger, 10kWh worth of batteries for energy storage, an inverter, and a management system that allows management and monitoring through an app. While the solar charger is rated at 22kW, the peak system output is only rated at 7.4kW. That’s still nearly double the current standard, according to the Centurion dealership.
The dealership saved the good stuff for itself, however. The solar solution for on-site energy consumption and e-tron chargers can provide up to 53kW of power. But that involves 112 solar panels on the dealership’s roof so you’ll have to make do with 7.4kW from the home-based EV solar charger.
