Nino Schurter is a perfectionist – after all, he has to be, it’s not for nothing that he is the best cross-country mountain biker in the world. Olympic champion, multiple world champion, seven-time overall World Cup winner and record holder with the most World Cup victories, just to list his most important achievements. But he also focuses on perfection and sustainability at home. The Schurters have had a PV system installed in addition to the existing solar thermal system since 2015. The former produces hot water (thermal energy), while the PV system is used to generate electricity. Since Nino has now been driving a purely electric Polestar 2, the desire arose to find the perfect interaction between the PV system and the electric car.
PV system on the roof – Polestar in the garage at Schurters
Initial situation: Energy management requires…
Like many people, Nino and his family are among those who already have a PV system but without energy management or full monitoring. In other words, only production was recorded, consumption was not measured. This initial situation occurs more often and requires a measurement of the house connection and an energy management system in order to optimize. A 3-phase energy meter was installed in the existing PV system and the Solar Manager takes over the “Home Energy Management” (HEMS). The electrical work was carried out by Schönholzer Elektro.
Conveniently set charging modes for the electric car in the app
Charge Polestar 2 with solar power
What was important at Schurters was controlling the charging station in order to charge the Polestar 2 as much as possible with electricity from its own roof. This means that the power currently produced by the PV modules on the roof flows into the electrical system in a time-controlled manner. The car is provided with exactly as much electricity as is left over from production.
To ensure that the system is used perfectly, I recommended a charging station that allows you to switch between single-phase and three-phase charging. In this case, an Alfen Single S-Line was used, which is optimally controlled by the Solar Manager. This means that the Polestar 2 can be charged from as little as 1.4kW excess up to theoretically 11kW.
Charge your Scott e-bike only with solar power
The e-bike is also intelligently integrated
The Scott Patron eRide from Nino has a 750Wh battery, which is ideal for storing some self-generated energy for the next ride. The right charger takes around 6 hours to fully charge and is controlled by a myStrom Smart Plug. This is simply integrated into the WLAN and switches on in a controlled manner via Solar Manager when there is enough surplus, but also measures consumption. So ideal for monitoring consumption.
In order to expand the energy monitoring a little, we installed a second plug on the coffee machine in the kitchen. This means that Nino not only has his electric bike and Polestar 2 under control energetically, but also his coffee consumption…
Self-consumption optimization at Schurters
Optimization: Getting the most out of it
I always see a PV system without optimizing self-consumption as an incomplete project. Why?
If I produce my own electricity from the sun during the day, it makes perfect sense to use it at the same time. There are consumers such as boilers or heat pumps that can simply be postponed throughout the day without any restrictions on the user. Other things require manual intervention, such as washing machines or dishwashers. It’s best to simply plug in the electric car at home and then optimize the home energy management system automatically. This is how the energy transition works and you don’t feed in electricity cheaply during the day only to get it more expensively from the grid in the evening.
With the PV system on the roof, the purely electric Polestar and the Solar Manager, I finally have a setup that allows me climate-friendly mobility. It feels extremely good to be out on the streets using the energy captured from the sun.
Nino Schurter
Nino Schurter charges as often as possible using only his own PV electricity
Conclusion
Nino has kept an eye on the PV electricity generated since the system began. But now he can also see his own electricity consumption and that is immediately optimized. On the one hand, this means that as a customer you can “experience energy” in a more targeted way and get a feeling for what a kWh achieves, how much of it is produced and what you can do with it. An essential point for the energy transition.
The fact that Nino, with the optimizations, often drives the Polestar 2 with its own PV electricity is twice as much fun. ETH has also published a study on how well this works, which I have been doing for several years…