Benefits of a Solar Energy Storage System
Solar energy storage systems can offer a number of benefits for homeowners. These systems are usually connected to solar panels and work to store electricity from the sun for use during off-peak times.
Adding battery backup to your solar system can increase your energy efficiency, provide energy independence, and help you save money during power outages. Learn more about solar energy storage system pros and cons.
Reduce Your Dependence on the Grid
Adding an energy storage system to your solar PV system allows you to store excess electricity generated during peak sunlight hours for later use. This reduces your reliance on the grid and can lower your energy costs.
Without storage, if your solar panels do not produce enough electricity for your home Solar energy storage system on cloudy days or after sunset, you will draw from the grid just like a customer with traditional power setups. With a solar-plus-storage system, your excess energy is stored in batteries and used for your home after the sun goes down, lowering your utility bills.
Businesses can also benefit from energy storage. Depending on the capacity of your storage battery systems, you can even gather electricity in summer (when solar is producing more than demand) and use it during winter, when it is difficult for businesses to gather enough renewable energy from their roofs.
Energy storage systems are differentiated by their energy and power capacities, measured in kilowatt-hours and megawatt-hours. Different storage systems are suitable for different applications. Shorter duration storage can help a solar plant to operate smoothly during output fluctuations caused by passing clouds, while longer-term storage helps provide supply during outages or to support peak demand. Storage can also be used to offer ancillary services by shifting energy from off-peak to on-peak periods, and vice versa.
Increase Your Energy Independence
Whether you are in the middle of a big storm or simply experiencing an outage, your solar power system can help to back up your home and provide clean backup energy. In fact, a home with both solar panels and battery storage can be completely independent of the grid, eliminating your need for diesel-powered generators during an outage. By becoming energy independent, you also reduce your carbon footprint and contribute to a more sustainable and resilient community.
Solar energy storage systems can help homeowners become more efficient, decreasing their reliance on the electric grid. They can be designed to utilize the sun’s limitless supply of energy, storing excess electricity for later use and decreasing demand on the grid. Additionally, battery systems can store power for peak consumption times that often occur during summer evenings and afternoons. These times of peak demand can coincide with decreased solar production, creating a supply and demand problem.
By pairing solar with storage, you can overcome this challenge and maximize your savings on utility costs. A battery can provide energy independence and help to offset rising utility rates during these high demand times. In addition, it can also enable you to take advantage of the benefits of net metering, which allows you to send any excess energy that your solar system is not using back to the grid for credit or cash.
Increase Your Energy Efficiency
With solar energy storage, you can maximize your self-consumption and reduce your dependence on the grid. Solar-plus-storage systems are connected to a photovoltaic (PV) system and use batteries to store excess energy that can be used at night or during power outages.
Solar-plus-storage can also be helpful in states with aging utility grids that experience frequent outages. In addition, it can help during emergency situations like wildfires, when public safety power shutoffs might limit your ability to produce electricity at home.
Depending on your battery size and usage, it can also save you money on your electric bills. It’s a great way to lower your electricity bills even more than a typical home solar PV system and reduce your carbon footprint.
Solar energy storage systems use a variety of different technologies to store and deliver power, including lithium-ion batteries like the ones found in your phone; pumped hydroelectric storage, which uses water as a medium for storing energy; thermal storage, which stores heat by using materials such as sand, molten salts, or ice; and concentrated solar thermal power (CSP), which uses mirrors to focus sunlight on a hot fluid. The technology is continuously evolving to meet the needs of customers and provide maximum efficiency. Software such as Codibly is helping to make solar-plus-storage easier for installers to design by providing tools that analyze load off-set, forecast smart battery sizing recommendations based on customer priorities, and include battery self-consumption modeling.
Store Your Excess Energy
Power storage systems allow you to bank energy for times when the sun isn’t shining. This can help smooth out electricity flows in the grid, particularly when there are differences between generation and demand. This is often due to factors such as season, time of day, cloud cover, or dust and haze that can interfere with photovoltaic (PV) solar panels or concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) systems.
Adding an energy storage system to your solar panel installation allows you to keep the excess power generated by your panels, rather than Portable lifepo4 battery sending it back to the utility grid or using it at night or on cloudy days. This reduces your reliance on the grid and can also help you save money on your electric bills.
The energy storage system can be either a battery or a thermal storage device. Battery systems store electrical energy in chemical bonds, while thermal storage systems use a material such as water or molten salts to absorb and store heat.
The cost of solar-plus-storage systems is decreasing quickly as technology improves and more homeowners adopt them. And with the recent extension of the solar investment tax credit into 2024, there’s no better time to consider adding an energy storage system to your home or business. Contact Codibly today to learn more about our solar-plus-storage services.
