Battery Storage

How Does Solar Battery Storage Work?

Excess energy from you solar PV system is deposited into the battery, this means that the energy surplus can be stored in it and is readily onsite for you to draw from when your solar panels aren’t generating enough electricity.

When choosing the type of battery to use for energy storage, consider the following:

1. Battery life and warranty
2. Power capacity
3. Depth of discharge (DoD)

A battery’s lifespan is approximately 10 years or 6000 life cycles.

Warranties for batteries are generally stated in years or cycles.

The power capacity refers to the total amount of electricity that the battery can keep. Solar batteries are usually stackable, meaning you can have multiple battery storages at home to increase capacity.

The DoD measures the degree to which a battery can be used relative to its total capacity. If a battery has a 100% DoD it means you can use the full battery storage amount (e.g. 2.5kWh) to power your home. If a battery has a 94% DoD, it means you can use up to 94% of the battery capacity (e.g. for a 2.5kWh battery, you can use down to 2.35kWh before the battery needs to charge again).

Benefits of Battery Storage

Having battery storage lets you become more energy independent. Batteries maximise your solar self-consumption, reducing the amount of electricity you need to purchase from the grid. They also allow your home to continue using solar power of an evening by storing the excess solar energy produced during the day so that it is readily available to use when you need it.

On a larger scale, batteries can help balance short-term power fluctuations, manage peak demand and act as a backup to prevent or recover from power outages affecting an entire gridline. Installing energy storage solutions also impact the supply and demand of renewable energy. Cleaner energy sources can be integrated easier into the electricity ecosystem when energy storage solutions are developed and can give us more flexibility in producing and using electricity.

A solar battery is not necessarily suitable to be paired with all solar PV systems. Firstly, you need to ensure your system is compatible with having a battery added to it, and if you’re looking to add a battery to further reduce your electricity bills, you will need to ensure your system is producing enough excess energy to charge the battery once it has delivered the on-going daily energy demand to your home. If not, you may need to consider increasing your solar PV capacity to provide the required excess energy.

Having a battery installed also enables you to charge it overnight on a cheaper tariff throughout the winter. You also have another option of adding an AC Coupled System to your existing solar panel installation. This means that you are able to add a battery to an already existing system.

Interested?

If you want to find out more relative to your system, just contact us and we’ll be happy to keep you right. And if you do decide to go ahead, we promise our usual quality service and competitive price.