For household owners who invested in solar power, one of the questions you may have is, is it still necessary to have home solar batteries? Solar batteries play an essential role in ensuring your home’s energy dependence. Solar powers alone depend on the weather, and they cannot store energy, so if there is a power interruption, you may still encounter a power outage. Through a solar battery, excess energy produced by the solar panels is stored for nighttime, cloudy or rainy day consumption.
If you experience a frequent power outage in your area, investing in a home solar battery can be necessary, especially if you’re achieving 100% energy independence. Since this technology is becoming popular, choosing the right brand to trust is challenging. In this article, we’ll compare well-known home solar battery brands and check out how efficient they are as power storage.
Tesla Powerwall
If you would research the best home solar batteries available on the market, the Tesla Powerwall is always on the list. Among the units it offers, the Tesla Powerwall 2 hit the mainstream. It’s an Alternating Current (AC) battery with an inverter-charger that works well for existing Tesla solar panels. The Tesla Powerwall is considered the most popular solar battery with its large battery storage capabilities of about 13.5kWh.
What’s exciting about it is that it has a high round-trip efficiency of about 90%, which means less lost energy during the storage process. If the solar power isn’t in use, this home solar battery can deliver 5.8kW of continuous power up to 10kW of peak power. Its main battery is lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), built to withstand both low and high temperatures and is made to last long.
This brand, specifically the Tesla Powerwall 2, is sleek, compact, and rectangular for easy handling and installation. It has vents on the sides to avoid overheating. Might be quite heavy with its 120kg weight, but it can be both ground-mounted and wall-mounted.
Tesla Powerwall 2 has three modes—self-consumption, time-based control mode, and backup only—depending on how you want your solar battery to store power. The self-consumption mode is when you want the excess energy from the solar panel to be stored directly in the battery. The time-based control mode is when you’re only allowing the battery to only store energy when the rate fluctuates to save on your electricity bill. And the backup-only mode serves as an emergency backup. If there’s no power drawn from the solar system, it will automatically switch to the power mode.
Enphase IQ
When it comes to solar panels, Enphase energy is known as the industry-leading microinverters. With its reputation as a quality brand, it expanded its product line to solar batteries. They currently offer four battery models—IQ Battery 3, 3T, 10, and 10T—that use microinverter technology. If your home requires high electricity needs or if you have a large property, you may combine the 3/3T and 10/10T models.
If you’re located in an area with harsh weather conditions, the Enphase IQ is a good choice because it can maintain its ability to absorb excess power efficiently during extreme weather conditions. It can also detect an upcoming storm, so it can prioritize storing sufficient energy. All models under this brand offer a round trip efficiency of 89%.
The Enphase IQ battery will automatically power your home and your appliances as soon as the grid goes down since the solar energy system is already in sync with the grid and your home from the time of installation. The 3/3T models have a 1.28kW continuous power rating, while the 10/10T models have a 3.84kW power rating.
LG Chem RESU-10H
Investing in a home solar panel is best for households requiring high energy demand. However, if you have lower energy needs but still want solar batteries for backup, the LG Chem RESU-10H is the top option. The LG brand isn’t only a sought-after brand for appliances, but this is also a widely used solar battery due to its quality. It holds a round-trip efficiency of about 94.50%, with a depth of discharge of 90%.
Since this is a residential energy storage unit, it is a perfect use for the Time-Of-Use mode. This solar battery will only be used during peak usage time to avoid high energy costs. LG Chem is also scalable; if you already have an existing LG battery like the 16H Prime, you can connect both of these or other LG Chem batteries to increase its storage capacities up to 32kWh.
The battery’s maximum power rating is 5.0kW with a usable capacity of 9.3kWh. The only downside of LG Chem is that it may struggle to perform efficiently in excessive heat, so it’s important to consider your location before opting for it. Another advantage of this home solar battery is that it’s compatible with any solar panel brand, unlike other solar batteries that only work best when paired with the same brand of solar panel.
Conclusion
Home solar batteries greatly help reduce your dependency on the grid. You may need to shell out a huge amount of money to set up a home solar system, but you will definitely benefit from it in the long run; plus, you’re also reducing your carbon footprint, which is beneficial for the environment. There’s a long list of home solar batteries. As a guide in choosing the right one, determine your household power needs, your budget, the unit’s price, and availability.
