Why you need batteries on your solar system

Batteries are a great idea for your solar system to store the extra power that your system produces, and you don’t use. The reason you don’t use the power is simply because you are not home to use the power when it is being produced.

Let’s say you have a $1000 per quarter power bill. Just for the sake of this article let’s say your system produces $1200 worth of power for the quarter which means you should have $200 worth of power in excess being generated, that you would then sell to the grid and get paid for it. But at the end of the quarter, you still get a power bill of $400. You might say what the hell, why do I still have a bill. The reason is quite a simple equation. Yes, you produced $1200 worth of power, but you were not home to use it all, so what happened to the rest of the power? All the excess power you generated got sold to the grid at a ridiculously cheap discount of somewhere between .05 cents to .12 cents per Kilowatt. Basically, if you are making excess power it needs to go somewhere, so it goes to the grid to be resold. This is why you need batteries on your solar system, to store the extra power which is worth money to you.

This is how it works in a nutshell. Most people are paying around 0.32 cents to .045 cents a kilowatt for power from the grid. So, when you are making your own power, each kilowatt is essentially worth the same to you because you are not having to buy it right? The problem is you don’t use it all because you are away at work during the day and any power you don’t use that you have generated gets sent out to the grid. You get paid for this power at between .05 cents to .12 cents per Kilowatt from your power provider if you are lucky. Not fair right when it’s worth say 0.38 (because that’s what they make you pay for it) You make it and its worth say .038 cents per kilowatt, you sell the excess to the grid for .08 cents per kilowatt and that same power company sells it to the neighbour at .038 cents and makes a 0.30 cent profit for doing nothing. Ripoff!!

This is why you need batteries on your solar system or at least install a Hybrid inverter when first installing your system so you have the option later to fit the batteries. What we do is look at your power bill, work out how much excess power you are sending to the grid, and this will then tell us what size battery you will need to store all or most of you generated power so that you get to use it yourself. This way you bill will read differently. Instead of having a solar export to the grid on your bill, you hopefully would have a near enough to zero bill because you have stored and used your own power. This is dependent on your usage, battery pack size, seasonal usage of air conditioning etc. The only difference to the solar system is you will need a Hybrid inverter to be able to connect your batteries. It is suggested that you purchase a hybrid inverter on purchase of your system, and then once you get your first full quarter bill we can then analyze the bill and suggest a battery pack based on the amount of power you are selling to the grid.

The other HUGE benefit is that if you have a Hybrid inverter and a battery pack, if there is a power blackout from storms or whatever you will still have power.

Read through my solar page and learn more here.