Batteries and a Very Basic Summary

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay, but I had some festivals and other stuff come up, so let’s dive into this week’s blog topic of batteries. My previous post was about a battery rebate program called the Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), and I wanted to go further with the battery topic. In my second post I described briefly what home storage system batteries and their benefits, here we will go over some more detailed aspects of them. We will again be using a more general question and ask method, and if you have any questions, please ask away in the comments section.

Best,

Piotr

Questions:

1. Where can batteries get their energy?
   1. Batteries can receive power from either the grid or from a renewable energy source such as solar or wind generation.
2. Can batteries form micro-grids?
   1. Yes, batteries, can form micro-grids for the properties that are installed on.
3. Can batteries discharge to the home while re-charging?
   1. It depends on the manufacturer, for the Enphase battery solution the battery and dis-charge and re-charge at the same time.
4. What are they made of?
   1. It depends on the manufacturer, with the most popular chemical solutions being Lithium Ion and Lithium Iron Phosphate.
5. What are the benefits of installing a battery system?
   1. Creates a micro-grid with rapid detection to outages to the electrical grid and can maintain either select breakers or a whole home during a lasting outage while re-charging during the day from on-site renewables.
   1. For large power consumers a battery system can help with power arbitrage if your energy provider uses a Time-Of-Use tariff schedule. This is especially true if you have renewables installed because your battery system can dis-charge at peak rate hours and then re-charge during next day from your PV system and or the grid.
6. What do they work with, do they need special equipment?
   1. Depends on the manufacturer, some batteries are DC connected batteries (LG batteries) and they require special hardware to work with solar (Ex.SolarEdge StoreEdge Inverter). For AC-Coupled batteries, such as the Tesla PowerWall V 2.0 and newer, the battery comes with its own hardware, so that it can operate with pretty much any new or existing system that fits the design parameters.
7. Is there a recycle point for home batteries?
   1. No, not currently.
8. How much do they cost?
   1. Depends, however, previous firms that I have encountered were offering a single 13.2kWh PowerWall V2.0 from 13.5-16k for the permits, materials and installation of the battery and gateway. The Enphase Ensemble solutions costs around $15,000 for a 10kWh pack and is Compatible with Enphase M215/M250 series micro-inverters or newer.
9. What are the rebates involved?
   1. For California the Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) and the Federal Tax Credit.
10. Popular products:
    1. Tesla, Enphase, Generac, and Sonnenhome Core, are currently the manufactures that have products, but availability may be an issue and its best to check with your contractor.