The first EVs on a corporate car park always spark curiosity. Some employees lift the bonnet, others open a spreadsheet. Will a “green” fleet raise costs—or save the budget instead? Right from the start you can calculate that an affordable solar power plant in Odesa for office buildings pays for itself faster than sceptics expect. Yet the question is broader: should you build a photovoltaic station together with charging devices, or are ordinary sockets from the city grid enough?
When figures argue with inertia
Just a few years ago the typical office paid only for air‑con, a server room and evening lighting. Today the energy profile is changing: every new electric car is a mini‑consumer that can easily “eat” a day’s quota of kilowatt‑hours. Managers hesitate: leave charging at the mercy of a random tariff or create in‑house generation?
It looks like a dilemma from the “optional” drawer, but the facts paint a different picture.
- A private PV plant locks in the price of energy for the next 20–25 years.
- Day‑time charging aligns perfectly with the peak of solar radiation.
- Sockets become an obvious social perk: staff no longer waste time hunting for a public charging hub.
Tax incentives for renewables in Ukraine reinforce the maths. Where a project once seemed fancy window‑dressing, it is now a competitive edge.
How the economics stack up
Design engineers prefer to talk not about photons but about hryvnias. Three corrections rule the calculation—output, roof or ground conditions and charger model.
Picture an office park of 1,200 m² with a hundred employees. Four DC stations (60 kW each) need 25–30 kWp of generation. Investment covers panels, inverter, installation, cabling, balance‑of‑system, software and surplus recovery into the building network. Add a service contract and the price rises, but life‑cycle risks shrink. It is worth noting that a 30 kW turnkey solar power plant and price in Dnipro is now almost 15 % lower than a year ago thanks to silicon‑wafer dumping.
Compared with “pay‑as‑you‑go” city electricity, payback lands in the 4–6‑year range assuming grid prices climb by 9 % a year. Interestingly, switching from slow AC chargers to fast DC hardly alters the payback clock—tariff bands simply shuffle.
Real stories, not theoretical tables
A coworking hub on the outskirts of Lviv started small: six panels over a parking canopy and two 11 kW sockets. Result? Management noticed employees stayed longer at summer meet‑ups: energy costs dipped and the car topped up for free.
Another scene— a logistics firm in Poltava. They chose a hybrid: a covered EV lot coupled with a 50 kW PV array on the warehouse roof. In winter the plant prioritises the boiler room; in summer it feeds the chargers. A service report showed corporate electricity use down by one‑third and staff loyalty up, because the “fuel” now lives inside the company.
Details easy to overlook
- Status of connected equipment. RFID‑authorised chargers save power at night by blocking random “guests.”
- Modularity. Start with one panel row and add a second without rebuilding the whole backbone.
- Overheat insurance. Solar panels cast shade pockets— a summer bonus for cars.
- Monitoring. Modern inverters stream graphs to a mobile app showing every amp‑minute.
A last glance through the windscreen
Firms keen on CSR already mount CO₂‑savings counters beside reception. Clients walk in, read the figure and realise: profit isn’t the only concern here. Still, the social display would hardly persuade without accurate sums. A finance‑engineer will quickly explain that the “green” kilowatt‑hour remains cheaper than the traditional one even after panel cleaning and an inverter swap in 10–12 years.
And here comes the key question that surfaces in every office during briefing: which solar power plant is better 5, 10 or 30 kW? The answer lies between vehicle consumption, appliance schedules and future fleet growth. Once you tally real kilometres, choosing capacity stops being guesswork. Dolya Solar Energy will handle everything else—from roof audit to the first lithium ion flowing into the battery.
