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Make sure Battery Storage Systems are right for you
Battery storage systems have seen a significant rise in popularity by owners and operators of Solar PV systems attempting to increase their self-consumption. Battery storage systems are available at residential and commercial scales. These systems can sometimes make a lot of sense, in particular where a customer has a specific load to back up or has high export during daytime hours with high demand during off-solar peak hours. Just as much as they can make sense, they are also regularly missold.
You may also be interested in our page.
Residential Battery Storage Systems
Points to consider
- The Solar PV System's actual generation v the house consumption - how much electricity generated is left to charge a battery.
- In summer when solar yield is at its highest, do you have a regular evening electrical load in your property to discharge a battery into? Residential battery storage systems are usually between 5 and 8 kWh in capacity, with some reaching up to 13 kWh. It is unlikely in a modern efficient home that such loads will exist in the summer when you can charge the battery sufficiently to make any meaningful contribution towards its payback.
- In winter, when your home electrical demand is most likely at its highest and your solar PV system is generating at its lowest output, the battery system is unlikely to charge as the house will most likely mop up any solar generation as it is generated leaving little to nothing to store in the batteries.
- So as you can probably see, a normal residential home is unlikely to benefit from battery storage on that basis. However, there is an argument with increasing peak time electricity rates and beneficial cheap night-time tariffs it could work out that grid charging the batteries off-peak and discharging them at peak times could contribute to savings. These are factors that need to be carefully considered before purchasing battery storage. High self-consumption of solar-generated energy does not always make financial sense.
Commercial Battery Storage Systems
In a commercial environment, things can change dramatically with the capability to switch around production and shift patterns to suit load and demand. There is much more scope to dump power and generally larger amounts of it due to the scaling of commercial PV systems. However, the complexities of understanding loads can sometimes be a work of art and require monitoring of supplies to get a bigger picture of the building’s load profile.
Read our page regarding “Hot Water Diverters” these can sometimes make much more sense than battery storage systems.
C Gascoigne Ltd. will give you an honest appraisal of the likely benefits a battery storage system will make to your bills, we do not just “shift boxes” to make money wherever we can.
If you already have a battery storage system, AC or DC coupled, and require the system checking, then this is something we can also help with.
