There are certain specifications you should use when evaluating your solar battery options, such as how long the solar battery will last or how much power it can provide. Below, learn about all of the criteria that you should use to compare your home energy storage options, as well as the different types of solar batteries.
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Whether you choose a battery manufactured by a cutting-edge startup or a manufacturer with a long history depends on your priorities. Evaluating the warranties associated with each product can give you additional guidance as you make your decision.
Many different types of organizations are developing and manufacturing solar battery products, from automotive companies to tech startups. While a major automotive company entering the energy storage market likely has a longer history of product manufacturing, they may not offer the most revolutionary technology. By contrast, a tech startup might have a brand-new high-performing technology, but less of a track record to prove the battery&#;s long-term functionality.
Your solar battery will have a warranty that guarantees a certain number of cycles and/or years of useful life. Because battery performance naturally degrades over time, most manufacturers will also guarantee that the battery keeps a certain amount of its capacity over the course of the warranty. Therefore, the simple answer to the question &#;how long will my solar battery last?&#; is that it depends on the brand of battery you buy and and how much capacity it will lose over time.
For most uses of home energy storage, your battery will &#;cycle&#; (charge and drain) daily. The battery&#;s ability to hold a charge will gradually decrease the more you use it. In this way, solar batteries are like the battery in your cell &#; you charge your each night to use it during the day, and as your gets older you&#;ll start to notice that the battery isn&#;t holding as much of a charge as it did when it was new. For example, a battery might be warrantied for 5,000 cycles or 10 years at 70 percent of its original capacity. This means that at the end of the warranty, the battery will have lost no more than 30 percent of its original ability to store energy.
A battery&#;s round-trip efficiency represents the amount of energy that can be used as a percentage of the amount of energy that it took to store it. For example, if you feed five kWh of electricity into your battery and can only get four kWh of useful electricity back, the battery has 80 percent round-trip efficiency (4 kWh / 5 kWh = 80%). Generally speaking, a higher round-trip efficiency means you will get more economic value out of your battery.
The depth of discharge (DoD) of a battery refers to the amount of a battery&#;s capacity that has been used. Most manufacturers will specify a maximum DoD for optimal performance. For example, if a 10 kWh battery has a DoD of 90 percent, you shouldn&#;t use more than 9 kWh of the battery before recharging it. Generally speaking, a higher DoD means you will be able to utilize more of your battery&#;s capacity.
Most solar batteries need to retain some charge at all times due to their chemical composition. If you use 100 percent of a battery&#;s charge, its useful life will be significantly shortened.
A battery with a high capacity and a low power rating would deliver a low amount of electricity (enough to run a few crucial appliances) for a long time. A battery with low capacity and a high power rating could run your entire home, but only for a few hours.
While capacity tells you how big your battery is, it doesn&#;t tell you how much electricity a battery can provide at a given moment. To get the full picture, you also need to consider the battery&#;s power rating. In the context of solar batteries, a power rating is the amount of electricity that a battery can deliver at one time. It is measured in kilowatts (kW).
Capacity is the total amount of electricity that a solar battery can store, measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). Most home solar batteries are designed to be &#;stackable,&#; which means that you can include multiple batteries with your solar-plus-storage system to get extra capacity.
As you consider your solar-plus-storage options, you&#;ll come across a lot of complicated product specifications. The most important ones to use during your evaluation are the battery&#;s capacity & power ratings, depth of discharge (DoD), round-trip efficiency, warranty, and manufacturer.
As electric vehicles become more popular, more companies are dedicating significant research and development funds to developing batteries, and they&#;re expanding into the energy storage business. Tesla is the first mainstream example (with their Powerwall battery), but Mercedes-Benz and BMW are also bringing standalone batteries to the market in .
There are two ways to answer this question and the first is to determine how long a solar battery can power your home. In many cases, a fully charged battery can run your home overnight when your solar panels are not producing energy. To make a more exact calculation, you&#;ll need to know a few variables, including how much energy your household consumes in a given day, what the capacity and power rating is for your solar battery and whether or not you are connected to the electric grid.
For the sake of a simple example, we&#;ll determine the size of a battery needed to provide an adequate solar plus storage solution with national average data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The average U.S. household will use roughly 30 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy per day and a typical solar battery can deliver some 10 kWh of capacity. Thus a very simple answer would be, if you purchased three solar batteries, you could run your home for an entire day with nothing but battery support.
In reality, the answer is more complicated than that. You will also be generating power with your solar panel system during the day which will offer strong power for some 6-7 hours of the day during peak sunlight hours. On the other end, most batteries cannot run at maximum capacity and generally peak at a 90% DoD (as explained above). As a result, your 10 kWh battery likely has a useful capacity of 9 kWh.
Ultimately, if you are pairing your battery with a solar PV array, one or two batteries can provide sufficient power during nighttime when your panels are not producing. However, without a renewable energy solution, you may need 3 batteries or more to power your entire home for 24 hours. Additionally, if you are installing home energy storage in order to disconnect from the electric grid, you should install a few days&#; worth of backup power to account for days where you might have cloudy weather.
The general range for a solar battery&#;s useful lifespan is between 5 and 15 years. If you install a solar battery today, you will likely need to replace it at least once to match the 25 to 30 year lifespan of your PV system. However, just as the lifespan of solar panels has increased significantly in the past decade, it is expected that solar batteries will follow suit as the market for energy storage solutions grows.
Proper maintenance can also have a significant effect on your solar battery&#;s lifespan. Solar batteries are significantly impacted by temperature, so protecting your battery from freezing or sweltering temperatures can increase its useful life. When a PV battery drops below 30° F, it will require more voltage to reach maximum charge; when that same battery rises above the 90° F threshold, it will become overheated and require a reduction in charge. To solve this problem, many leading battery manufacturers, like Tesla, provide temperature moderation as a feature. However, if the battery that you buy does not, you will need to consider other solutions like earth-sheltered enclosures. Quality maintenance efforts can definitely impact how long your solar battery will last.
Solar panels are a great way to capture free, clean energy from the sun for yourself or to feed the solar power to the grid for more savings on your utility bill. However, it is attaching a solar battery bank that gives you real energy independence.
Without solar batteries, even a house covered in photovoltaic panels will leave homeowners literally powerless when the grid goes down.
"Something that people don't consider is that if they're on natural gas and the power goes out in the winter they think their heater is going to work, but most have an electric fan, so if the power goes out you still need something," said Mike Murphy, owner of Utah-based PrepSOS, which sells solar batteries, generators and other emergency preparedness equipment.
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Batteries are the key component that ensures your home can always stay lit and warm and that vital pieces of electronics such as medical equipment continue functioning. Depending on where you live, they might be able to save you some extra money by returning energy to the grid at times when it's more valuable.
All of these benefits come at a cost, and wading through specifications to find the right match for your needs can be a bewildering task. Here's a concise primer on what you need to know before you go shopping for independence in a box.
The simplest way to think of batteries is to imagine that the electricity in your house flows through wires in much the same way as water through plumbing. Batteries fill the role of a storage tank, making electricity readily available when it's needed, just as indoor pressure tanks and water heaters do with water. When batteries are tapped for energy, their reserve of stored electricity is depleted, but in a properly wired system, they can be automatically replenished by "catching" any excess electricity flowing through the system from sources like solar panels or the grid.
Depending on your goals for installing batteries, your system might look a bit different.
1. Connect just to solar panels: Batteries connected only to solar panels will fill when the sun shines and will discharge when you use electricity and the sun is down or behind clouds. It's one option if you are off-grid and away from electrical utilities.
2. Connect to solar panels and to the grid: If you have a solar inverter that can temporarily disconnect you from the grid, you have what's known as a hybrid solar system. In such a system, you can charge your battery with your solar panels or the grid and use the energy stored there in your home or send it back to the grid and save some money via rate arbitrage (if you have time-of-use rates). A hybrid system can also keep your house powered during a power outage.
3. Connect just to the grid: While we wouldn't call them solar batteries, you can install batteries without solar panels at all. They would charge from the grid and would be useful for backup power or for enrolling in a virtual power plant.
The pros and cons of buying a battery largely boil down to savings (and backup power) versus cost.
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The extra solar electricity you store in your solar batteries can be used in place of electricity you'd normally have to buy from your utility, or sold back to the grid when it's most valuable. This can save you some money and relieve some pressure on the grid when there's peak demand. (Whether this is a viable money-saving option for you depends on your utility's net metering rules.)
Some companies are starting to allow people to enroll their batteries in virtual power plants, a fleet of batteries, smart thermostats and other household appliances that work together to decrease demand on the grid. Where available, virtual power plants might come with additional perks for the battery owner.
In addition, you'll be able to use your battery bank in the event that the grid goes down due to a failure, natural disaster or even a solar flare. A backup generator can also help keep the power on in an emergency (and charge your batteries), but it requires burning fossil fuels, usually either gas or propane.
Batteries do add considerable expense to your home energy system, but federal tax credits and other incentive programs usually can be applied to the cost of storage.
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Battery Pros Battery ConsCan reduce energy bills Savings vary depending on local utility and net metering rulesGetting cheaper, and eligible for tax credits and incentives ExpensiveStored power for when the grid goes down Large battery banks require significant storage spaceStoring and releasing energy during peak usage hours can reduce stress on the grid Not all utilities encourage or reward this practiceCleaner source of backup power than a generator A generator may be more useful in a major emergencyLatest battery chemistries (like Li-PO4) are exceedingly safe and simple to maintain Some batteries pose health and fire risks and require management and maintenanceIncreased energy independenceThere are several kinds of batteries used in battery backup systems, including lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries. Here's a quick overview.
There are multiple lithium chemistries on the market, including nickel-manganese-cobalt, lithium polymer and lithium iron phosphate. The latest lithium technology comes with less danger of fire than older headlines might lead you to believe. They're capable of a deeper discharge than lead acid batteries (you can use up to 90% of a charge per cycle without inflicting much damage) and are much easier to maintain with a longer lifespan. They're also significantly more expensive and sensitive to temperature. Increasingly, they are becoming standard in residential solar applications.
The basics of this technology are essentially unchanged for over a century. They remain inexpensive and widely available. For solar systems, it's popular to use somewhat more expensive sealed batteries that require less maintenance and eliminate the risk of dealing with a potential acid spill and hydrogen off-gassing. For a while, sealed lead acid seemed to be the future of solar batteries.
However, all lead acid batteries require more careful monitoring of charge levels compared with lithium-ion and can't compete in terms of efficiency, energy and lifespan but are a good and plentiful budget alternative.
Flow batteries (or redox flow batteries) are less common in home systems since they're mainly designed for commercial use. The technology appears promising, and it could become more widely used in residential battery backup systems in the near future.
Nickel-cadmium batteries have a high energy density with double the energy of a lead-acid battery. Nickel-cadmium batteries are very durable, expensive and work well in extreme temperatures making them a good choice for large-scale commercial and industrial projects. Cadmium is toxic and generally not appropriate for residential use.
In general, a solar battery bank can cost between $10,000 to $25,000 for 10 to 25 kilowatt hours of power. (The US Department of Energy says solar batteries can cost anywhere from $12,000 to $22,000.)
That said, it ultimately comes down to your budget and energy needs. A small off-grid solar system with enough battery capacity for the basics (no air conditioning or electric heaters allowed) using a pair of high-capacity flooded lead acid batteries can be had for $500 total. Upgrading to lithium-ion costs $1,300 for a system with comparable capacity.
Adding batteries is a significant expense for any system, but the good news is that nearly a third will come back to you in the form of the 30% federal renewable energy tax credit. Other incentives may also be available from state and local governments, utilities, and even credit unions.
It's best to use a certified solar installer or electrician to install your solar batteries and connect them to your solar array, your home, the grid and an EV charger if you desire. You should expect to spend a few thousand dollars for the labor involved, and there may be additional components like inverters, charge controllers and EV charge stations that can also add hundreds or thousands of dollars in expense.
If you have confidence in your DIY skills and experience with electricity, it is possible to install batteries yourself. Just be sure to check with local regulations, building codes and equipment warranties.
If you go the DIY route, make sure all batteries are the same age (ideally new). Don't mix new batteries with older ones to help make sure they charge evenly.
For all batteries, follow any manufacturers' instructions regarding monitoring the depth of discharge. Generally, for lead acid batteries, this means trying to keep them over half charged as much as possible. Many lithium-ion batteries can safely be taken down to only 10% charge. Flooded lead-acid batteries also need to be topped off with distilled water a few times a year.
A few years after installation, you may notice that your battery backup system doesn't hold a charge as well as it used to. That's because, like other types of batteries, battery backups lose storage capacity over time.
To account for this, battery backups include a warranty that expresses how efficient the battery should be by the end of the warranty period. Many of the top solar batteries offer 10 years and 70%, meaning that by the end of the 10-year warranty, the battery should still operate at 70% of its original performance. Lead acid battery warranties typically last for two to five years.
Inverters play an important role in how the battery stores and converts solar energy. While solar panels generate electricity in direct current, the electric grid and homes generally use alternating current. An inverter can convert AC to DC or vice versa, and most solar batteries include an inverter to store the energy in DC form, as well as an inverter to convert it back into AC to be used in the grid or the home.
Because inversion of current isn't perfectly efficient, battery producers are always experimenting with how to invert less often and increase the efficiency of the battery. As a result, some batteries will not have inverters for both input and output included in the system. Talk to your solar installer about the battery system you're considering so that you can make sure you have all the external inverters you need.
Beware cheap inverters, which are everywhere. To power modern household appliances, a pure sine wave inverter is essential; otherwise, you may end up frying some of the more delicate electronic circuits in your home.
Solar power is available for only part of the day. Adding a solar power storage battery system ensures you always have power when the sun isn't out or during a power outage.
A professional solar electricity system installer can help you select a battery that works well with your goals, whether you want to be entirely off-grid, have an emergency store for outages or minimize your costs from the electric company during peak hours.
DIY battery installation instructions abound online, but beware. Working with electrical equipment is dangerous and doing so without the proper training may also void your warranties and put you out of compliance with codes and other regulations.
Yes. The 30% federal solar tax credit can be applied to the total cost of your solar battery system if your battery can hold at least three kilowatt-hours of energy and is installed in or later.
It depends on how you intend to use them. Likely, fewer batteries are required if you simply hope to maximize net metering savings. To keep your home powered during an extended blackout, you will need to calculate your total power needs
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