What is a home battery?
Ok, let’s do a 30 second run through of the basics here. What is a home battery? We’re all used to putting batteries into things in our home like the remote control or a clock and things like that. But when we’re talking about home batteries, they will be quite a bit bigger. They will normally store at least 1 or 2kWh and some people have batteries at home that are bigger than 10 or 20kWh!
Another difference is that the batteries are not dedicated to any particular appliance. You don’t plug them into the back of your fridge for example! The batteries integrate with your whole house. So the energy stored in the batteries can be used for any purpose you see fit!
Some examples
So there’s plenty of companies out there that offer bespoke battery and software systems such as Enel. A BESS, is a Battery Energy Storage Solution. These can be gigantic in size, helping to power whole commercial buildings, or even the whole grid in a particular area. But today, we’re just looking at smaller, domestic uses.
Powerwall
The Tesla Powerwall is perhaps the most famous of domestic battery systems. The latest iteration is a sleek rectangular panel that can store up to 13.5kWh of energy. But you can actually stack up to ten Powerwalls together. There is an app that comes with the unit to monitor what is going on.
Myenergi
A recently released product comes from a company called Myenergi. That are perhaps best known for their Zappi EV chargers. But their latest addition to the line up is the Libbi. The Libbi can store up to 5kWh of energy, and up to 4 can be stacked together. Perhaps the best feature is the integration, as you connect with all of the other products through the bespoke app.
Storing renewables
So now that we have a decent understanding of what a home battery is, let’s look at some benefits and uses. Let’s quickly look at storing renewable energy. As great as wind and solar energy are, they are intermittent. There are great days when the wind blows and the sun shines so that you produce an excess. Having a home battery allows people to store that excess energy for a later time.
So when the grid has an excess of renewables, the price of that electricity will be very cheap, relatively speaking of course! Households will want to buy that electricity for use when the tariff would normally be a lot higher at peak times.
A lot of people also use home battery storage to harness their own solar energy. Some people have solar panels on their roofs that produce more electricity than they need during the day. Instead of sending it back to the grid, it gets diverted into their battery so that they can use it that evening or night.
Buying cheap electricity!
Batteries can be a great way to save money on the price of electricity you pay. Here in the UK, at the moment, it is incredibly expensive to buy electricity at peak times such as around 6pm in the evening. Yet, it can be very, very cheap to buy during the night when demand drops. So people with batteries will programme them to charge up while they’re in their beds asleep at night, and then use that electricity the next morning when the price would have been really expensive.
Avoiding blackouts
Let’s forget about money for a second and talk about another great benefit of home batteries. And that is avoiding blackouts. Now, some places around the world hardly ever suffer blackouts. They have a well-maintained, robust grid. But that’s not everywhere for sure!
Well, home batteries can tie you over during those periods when the grid goes down. Let’s say you have a 5kWh battery. And let’s say to keep your house running, you know, the fridge, freezer, a few lights, maybe make a cup of tea, and so on. Let’s say that you need 500W of power on average…then you could run your house for 10 hours on battery power alone. Of course, if you want to be frugal and just keep the fridge and a few lights on, then you could go for even longer!