A small Vermont solar installer is seeing a spike in interest for its off-grid electric vehicle charging technology.
Solaflect Energy, based in Norwich, has created chargers that are easy, quick and relatively inexpensive to install. The company’s parking lot solar panels collect the sun’s rays and direct them to the car batteries plugged into the system.
“It’s sunshine straight into the tank,” said Rob Adams, the company’s chief operating officer.
Solaflect has only been selling its solar EV chargers for about a year, but sales and interest in the system are soaring, according to Adams. Some of the hype came after the 20-employee company was featured in August on the popular podcast “Now You Know,” Adams said.
The first charger was installed in December in a parking lot at Dartmouth College. Since then, Solaflect has deployed the units at Middlebury College and a commercial building in the nearby Marble Works District. More recently, the company installed two charging systems at Hypertherm Associates, which makes industrial cutting tools in Hanover, N.H. In the coming weeks, new units are also going in at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., and at Dartmouth Health’s Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, N.H.
The units have four Level 2 chargers and cost about $50,000 each, but the company is currently leasing them to organizations for $4,000 per year. That option makes them even more attractive compared to the costly process of installing typical chargers, which can involve getting permits, upgrading electrical systems and tearing up parking lots, Adams said.
Solaflect has been making solar tracking panels for more than a decade, installing about 1,300 of them at homes and businesses, mostly in the Northeast. About two years ago, the company moved to adapt the panels for EV charging.
Because the electrons come straight from solar panels, it’s 100 percent green energy, unpolluted by grid power, which in New England still comes largely from fossil fuels, Adams noted.
There are a few downsides to not being connected to the grid, however. For one, the chargers only work when the sun is shining. A small battery on the unit manages the flow of electrons but does not store them.
There’s also a limit to how much juice the 6.2-kilowatt array can provide. While the system’s 16 solar panels are 40 percent more efficient than fixed versions because they follow the arc of the sun, they can only produce enough electricity for about 120 miles of total driving. If four EVs are hooked up to the array all day, that means each will only get about a 30-mile boost in range.
Since most people charge their electric vehicles at home, the Solaflect chargers are designed to offset the energy needed for their commute, Adams said. In the Northeast, drivers who use the chargers daily get an average of 7,500 miles per year per vehicle, more in sunnier locations.
And while manufacturers, consumers and the media place great emphasis on charging speed, fast charging can actually be bad for batteries, stressing them and reducing their lifespan, Adams said.
“Speed doesn’t matter if it’s where the car is sitting all the time,” Adams said. “The right way to think about this is it’s a topping-off solution every day at work.”
An employee with an EV gets dedicated access to one of the four spots beneath what Adams calls a “power plant in the parking lot.” In some cases, the employer, such as Hypertherm, pays the cost and provides the access as a benefit. In other cases, employers share that cost with employees. Williams College plans to charge employees $43 per month for access to a charger.
While grid-tied chargers are generally faster and work at all hours, drivers have to pay based on how much electricity they use. Solaflect’s energy is free.
Demand for the chargers is so strong at Hypertherm Associates that the company installed two chargers to serve as many as eight vehicles. Robin Tindall, the company’s director of environmental stewardship, said Hypertherm is committed to drastically reducing its carbon emissions. Solaflect’s chargers are a way to encourage its employees to buy EVs and plug-in hybrids, she said.
The company, which Adams said is profitable, is preparing to raise several million dollars from investors to expand operations to other states.
There’s been a big push to increase charging infrastructure as more people embrace EVs. They represented 9 percent of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2024. That number is only expected to increase. Several states, including Vermont, have banned the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.
That’s a lot of drivers looking for convenient locations to charge up and reduce their anxiety over their electric range. Experts expect 15 percent of the charging will be done at work by 2030, Adams said.
The Norwich factory can produce up to 400 charging units per year, so manufacturing capacity is not a problem if demand continues to rise. Adams is convinced it will, given how much additional EV charging capacity the nation needs.
“This is a lower-cost, super simple, fast installation solution that hits the employer-commuter range anxiety question head on,” he said.
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