[Photo Credit: SolarCity]

In a sign that solar-charged driving is poised to transform not only the transportation sector but the solar industry as well, one of America's leading solar companies, SolarCity, is reportedly moving toward officially incorporating EV+PV into its bidding process.

As we at SolarChargedDriving.Com have discovered, calculating solar PV as offsetting gasoline -- which is far more expensive than electricity -- can dramatically change the solar value equation.

SolarCity has not yet worked out the details on exactly how it will "code" gasoline offset into its bids, but a source familar with the potential changes in the solar company's bidding process said it won't be that difficult to establish a formula.

"It's pretty simple," he said. "Someone who's using PV for an EV is not buying any gas. Now they've got that gas money in their pocket."

Solar system as a fueling station
Indeed. As we have discovered after having tapped a new 5.59 kW solar system to produce 2,500 extra kWh of electricity in 4 1/2 months -- the equivalent of 10,000 miles of driving in an EV and $1,500 worth of gasoline at $3 per gallon and 20 m.p.g. -- a solar system can pump a lot of gas money into what amounts to a personal fuel bank.

If SolarCity moves to officially add an EV column to its residential PV bids -- and our source says it likely will -- it will become  possibly the first solar company in the U.S., and possibly the world, to do so.

However, SolarCity certainly won't be the last, predicts our source, as other solar companies will quickly realize the benefit of adding the gasoline offset variable to the solar bidding process.

"No one else has thought of doing this yet," he said. "There aren't that many people out there who know what (SolarCity) knows: EVs increase the appeal of PV. But they're going to learn quickly."

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