Ford and SunPower Corp. have teamed to offer a rooftop solar system for owners of the 2012 Ford Focus Electric car. Interested Focus Electric customers will be contacted by a participating SunPower dealer.
‘Under the Drive Green for Life program, Focus Electric owners can reduce their total cost of ownership by generating enough energy from their high-efficiency SunPower rooftop solar system to offset the electricity required to charge the vehicle at night,’ says Mike Tinskey, Ford's director of global vehicle electrification and infrastructure.
The 2.5 kW rooftop solar system uses SunPower E18 Series solar panels, which will produce an average of 3 MWh of electricity annually, according to SunPower's calculations. The system was sized to accommodate a customer who drives about 1,000 miles per month.
The complete SunPower solar system is offered at a base price of less than $10,000, after federal tax credits. Local and state rebates, along with other incentives, may reduce the system's cost further, depending on a customer's location, SunPower adds. Included in the purchase is a residential monitoring system, which includes the ability to track the performance on the Web or through an iPhone application.