Solar panels are a great way to harness the sun’s renewable energy, but they only generate energy when the sun is shining. Installing a home battery system allows you to bank the sun’s energy for later. This removes or lessens your reliance on the grid.
What is a home battery?
A home battery is an energy storage unit that can stockpile energy from either the power grid, or power generated from renewable energy resources like solar and wind. It is utilised during the evening when solar panels are no longer generating electricity, the weather is overcast or during blackouts. Households can install single unit batteries or couple them together for even more storage capabilities.
How do solar panels and home batteries work together?
There are lots of components that make up a home solar system. Your solar panels feed energy into an inverter, then that converted energy travels through a switchboard and is directed to the appliances in your household. When the sun isn’t shining you are using grid energy to keep your home running. Now imagine you have solar. The panels generate more solar energy than you can use. The excess gets fed back into the grid and you’ll receive a solar feed-in tariff (FiT) as credit on your bill. However if you have a home battery system installed, the switchboard will direct any excess solar energy to your battery, this reserves the energy for later use. Once the sun goes down or you’re using more energy than your panels produce, your home battery’s stored energy will power your home appliances. Here’s a visual example of how an AC-coupled home battery system works when added to an existing solar panel system.
Your solar panels first take-in sunlight.
The solar energy travels as direct current (DC) to the solar inverter. The energy is then converted into an alternating current (AC), which is used to power your home.
The switchboard directs the energy where it's needed. First it sends it to all the appliances in your home, and any excess is directed to the battery inverter.
The battery inverter converts the energy into a storage energy form.
Finally, the battery system stores the energy to be used later when the sun goes down and during peak energy usage times.
Then at nighttime …….
When the solar panels are no longer generating energy your home will switch to stored battery energy.
The home battery system will send energy to the battery inverter.
The battery inverters convert the energy into a form that can power your home’s appliances.
The switchboard then directs the energy to your appliances.
If the battery’s stored energy runs out your home will reply then on energy from the grid to continue running your household appliances.
How much power can home batteries store?
This is dependent on what size you have installed. But as a frame of reference, without any additional charging, a typical 10 kWh home battery system could:
Power a 300 W TV for 33 hours
Charge your iPhone 952 times
Blend 4,000 margaritas
Keep your fridge on for 50 hours
Toast 360 pieces of bread in a toaster
Optimising your Home Battery With Evergen
We are long-term partners with Evergen. Evergen is a revolutionary optimisation application that helps homeowners take control of their energy usage and manage their savings. Evergen analyses data from your home electricity usage in combination with external sources like weather forecasts, solar predictions, tariff awareness, usage patterns, and knowledge of your battery system’s health to optimise and minimise costs. The software optimises your solar and storage system to save you an additional 26.4% on average on your power bills.
Any other questions? Talk to an expert.
If you have any more questions or want to find out more about installing your own home battery system call 1300 319 419 and talk to our expert technicians today.
Comments