The California Independent System Operator’s (ISO) duck graph shows that there is an increase in the penetration of solar electricity in the state’s grid, which is increasing the risk of overgeneration, as well as large ramped-up needs when solar radiation is unavailable or during peak hours.
A lot of effort has gone into lifting our power generation because energy costs are not getting any lower. Air conditioners, computers, refrigerators, lights, and other home appliances cannot function without power. Avoiding using them is, unfortunately, not an option.
What can be done to salvage this situation?
Now is the time to look for alternative ways to take control of the power sector.
But how can you achieve this?
When homeowners install solar panels on their roofs, they can start producing their own energy. This is an effective way to reduce your energy bill. You get the added advantage of longevity by using Enlightened Solar to increase your overall solar energy production.
Is this enough to reduce your utility bills?
No. To see a remarkable saving in your electricity costs, your home needs a solar system with battery storage.
With this battery technology, which is emerging as a key solution to power issues worldwide, you can produce your own energy, and also store excess energy to use later, while maximizing your savings.
In a couple of minutes, you will learn:
- What solar batteries are
- The major types of solar batteries
- Why you should invest in solar battery technology
- The future of solar battery technology for homeowners
What Are Solar Batteries?
Solar batteries, which are commonly used in residential and commercial buildings, reserve energy to be consumed later and are charged by a well-connected solar system. The stored electricity can be consumed after the sun goes down, during a power outage, or when there is a peak in energy demand.
This home battery system stores surplus solar power and extends the use of the energy generated by the PV-system to provide free and sustainable power when the sun isn’t shining and the panels are not producing energy.
With these batteries, little or no electricity will be fed into the grid. This means that you won’t have to buy costly electricity from the grid. Also, self-consumption increases, leading to a significant decrease in electricity costs. The result is that you pay less per kWh used.
You enjoy more benefits when you get a solar battery in conjunction with solar panels.
Major Types of Solar Batteries
Solar batteries are vital to the energy independence of your home, especially when paired with a reliable solar system like Enlightened Solar. With the lead-acid battery generally becoming the primary source of power in EVs, the demand for EVs is increasing and boosting its market growth.
Although there are different types of solar batteries to choose from, it is important that you are also aware of their specifications, so that you can better evaluate your options.
Here are the different types of batteries that can be used in solar power systems:
Flooded lead-acid
This type of battery is best described as a “wet cell” battery, and is filled with electrolyte. It is the best type of battery for off-grid use, and ranges from medium capacity to high capacity.
- Size: They are similar in size to auto batteries but can have a full battery bank, which tends to consume a lot of space.
- Charging time: This varies depending on many factors. However, it could take between several hours to a day, or more, to charge fully.
- Lifespan: Flooded lead-acid batteries have a lifespan of about 8 years, and up to 15 years if it is well maintained. Cycling and various other factors will determine the durability of the batteries.
- Cycling: You can expect from 200 to 300 discharge or charge cycles. It mostly depends on the depth of discharge (DoD) that runs over the course of the flooded lead-acid battery’s life.
- Maintenance: It needs regular maintenance like venting, adding water, and cleaning the terminals.
- Temperature sensitivity: It is temperature-sensitive. Lower temperatures will reduce the battery capacity, while higher temperatures will increase the capacity. However, higher temperatures tend to degrade the battery life of lead-acid batteries.
- Safety: It contains corrosive and toxic lead and sulfuric acid. Be careful when you are either refilling or recharging the battery as gaseous hydrogen could cause an explosion.
- Price: Of all the different types of batteries for solar PV applications, this one is the cheapest.
- Green factor: The green factor is low because of the toxic nature of lead-acid batteries. The flooded lead cell types tend to leak as well.
Gelled electrolyte sealed lead-acid
The sealed lead-acid battery uses silica gel with suspended electrolyte. It works best for almost all deep cycle applications.
- Size: Quite similar to auto or marine batteries and varies in capacity. The home bank consists of several batteries.
- Charging time: Charging time, which can vary between a couple to several hours, depends on different factors.
- Lifespan: It has a battery life of up to 8 years and less than 20% DoD if properly maintained.
- Cycling: The cycling of this battery varies in the capacity withdrawn. It can have up to 1100 cycles with a withdrawn capacity of 50%.
<li>Maintenance: It is maintenance-free.
- Temperature sensitivity: It is temperature-sensitive. Lower temperatures will reduce the battery capacity. Higher temperatures, on the other hand, will increase the capacity but degrade the battery life.
- Safety: It contains corrosive and toxic lead and sulphuric acid. There could be an explosion if exposed to gaseous hydrogen, so be careful when recharging.
- Price: When compared to an AGM battery with a similar capacity, this is a slightly more expensive option.
- Green factor: The green factor for this type of battery is low as lead-acid batteries are known to be toxic. However, the components can be recycled.
Sealed absorbed glass mat lead-acid (AGM)
It is a sealed lead-acid battery that stores its electrolyte in thin glass mats rather than allowing them to flood the plates freely. AGM is great for standby applications that use infrequent deep discharge. Advanced technology makes it suitable for DoD uses as well.
- Size: AGM shares a similar size with the gel cell and flooded lead-acid batteries.
- Charging time: It charges rapidly, with a charging time that is up to five times faster than the flooded battery technology.
- Lifespan: A good estimation of the lifespan of this battery is 4 to 7 years. It can last up to 8 years with proper maintenance. DoD is less than 20%.
- Cycling: The cycling depends on the capacity withdrawn so, with normal use, you can expect about 700 to 800 cycles.
- Maintenance: It comes with no maintenance cost.
- Temperature sensitivity: It is temperature sensitive. Lower temperatures reduce the battery capacity, while higher temperatures can cause performance degradation.
- Safety: This battery contains corrosive and toxic lead and sulphuric acid. It should be recharged with caution as gaseous hydrogen can cause an explosion.
- Price: It has an upfront cost that is significantly lower than that of lithium-ion, is cheaper than gel cell, and pricier than flooded lead-acid batteries.
- Green factor: AGM has a low green factor with toxic lead-acid batteries that have recyclable components.
Lithium-ion
This is the most commonly used and most versatile energy storage technology today. It uses lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries to store solar energy.
- Size: It has a higher storage capacity, making it lighter and smaller than lead-acid batteries. The home battery system typically resembles small refrigerators or one or two washing machines in size.
- Charging time: The charging time for lithium-ion batteries varies significantly due to several factors. A full charge should take about three hours or more.
- Lifespan: The high-quality lithium-ion battery’s lifespan is 10 years.
- Cycling: Expect 5,000 to 7,000 cycles if you get a high-quality battery. This figure varies by capacity withdrawn and other factors.
- Maintenance: The maintenance is free and solid, with no need for water filling or refilling.
- Temperature sensitivity: It is temperature sensitive. At higher temperatures, there could be performance degradation.
- Safety: It is relatively safe if you use it properly.
- Price: This battery is quite expensive, usually double the price of lead-acid batteries. The high upfront costs are offset by the long-term cost-efficiency.
- Green factor: The price of this battery depends on the material used during the manufacturing process. Some manufacturers use toxin-free organic materials. However, inorganic lithium-ion is toxic, so you have to dispose of it carefully.
Flow
It is made up of reaction stacks that are separated by electrolyte and held in storage tanks. Best suited for storing power in large quantities.
- Size: The size of this type of battery varies, and is available in very large sizes.
- Charging time: This type of battery recharges in a way that is almost like filling an automatic gas tank. It is recharged by replacing the electrolyte.
- Lifespan: The lifespan of vanadium redox batteries is as long as 25 years or more. You can charge and discharge it without any lifespan impact.
- Cycling: It has no cycling limitations whatsoever.
- Maintenance: Low maintenance.
- Temperature sensitivity: It is temperature sensitive.
- Safety: It is inherently safe as electrolyte can neither get hot nor catch fire.
- Price: This battery is currently quite expensive, but can become less expensive with advances in organic aqueous technology.
- Green factor: Flow has a good green factor, a long life cycle, readily available required resources, and is easily recyclable.
Why Should You Invest in Solar Battery Technology?
Clearly, purchasing solar battery storage is a worthwhile investment when you are considering switching to solar power.
It allows you to easily use most of your solar power by yourself, which reduces the amount of electricity you purchase from energy suppliers.
Also, retrofitting a storage system will benefit you because we live in a society where we pay more for electricity than we spend on feed-in revenue. Basically, the power fed into the national grid does not make economic sense anymore.
Here are some of the reasons you should invest in solar batteries:
1.Reduces electricity bills:
Having a solar battery will help you to significantly reduce your energy costs. If you spend most of your day at work, you can enjoy electricity when you get home in the evenings when the solar power isn’t generating any electricity.
Battery storage will eliminate your reliance on the grid for energy, as well as spending too much on electricity. You will charge your battery in off-peak hours then discharge it in peak hours.
2. Use more electricity:
You get to use 100% of the electricity your solar panels generate. The battery stores the energy you do not use during the day for use during non-production hours. If your electricity demand does not exceed your battery’s supply, you can run on 24-hour renewable energy.
4. It is lucrative:
Some energy companies permit net metering and this is a good avenue to make some extra money.
How can you do this?
Simply sell your stored energy in your solar battery to your energy company when the prices of electricity are high. Especially if you won’t be needing electricity.
Another lucrative way that you can make some extra money is to allow some firms to use your solar battery to store their excess grid electricity.
5. It is an asset
An engineering professor, Yi Cui, said, “if you think about green scale storage, you want 20, 30 years lifetime.”
By patronizing a team of professionals like those at Enlightened Solar, you will get value for your money. Once you install our solar power system with batteries, you make a 30-year asset purchase.
The Future of Solar Battery Technology for Homeowners
Although it is hard to say where the power industry will go from here, the future looks bright for solar battery technology. Technological innovation increases renewable penetration, while decreasing costs have helped to proliferate battery energy storage on a global scale.
However, these technological advancements alone won’t suffice for quick adoption and the deployment of battery energy storage.
Some of the obstacles facing energy storage are:
- The difficulty in monetizing each value stream that energy storage can provide, and
- The inability to appropriately quantify and price energy storage despite the general agreement that it can work wonders for the power grid.
To support the deployment of battery energy storage technology, regulators, policymakers, and market operators need to focus on the following three areas that can significantly impact the energy sector:
- Pursue diverse hybrid storage projects;
- Tailor markets and regulations to produce the desired results;
- Make the regulations, policies, and rules of the market technology agnostic;
What does this mean for the energy industry?
It means that storage solutions will become viable and incredibly lucrative while offering innovative and efficient ways for homeowners to retain power.
So, which Solar Battery Technology is the Best for Homeowners?
With so many companies involved in the production of solar batteries, you must make an informed decision before making a purchase.
At Enlightened Solar, we will help you to assess your energy consumption, electrical panels, building structure, and other vital information that will help to determine how much you will save by installing a solar system with battery storage in your home.
When is the best time to install solar power with battery technology in your home?
There’s no better time to take action than NOW!