Battery Storage for Beginners!

A home battery is one of those products that continually comes up in conversations with homeowners as being one of the best bits of kit you can invest in.

Make the most of any excess solar production, charge them up cheaply overnight, and take them with you if you move home, they’re versatile for many different properties.

In this episode Emilie goes through what you need to consider before getting one.

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[GaryJohnWalker]

A follow up with maybe 3 examples would be great - small house even flat, "average" 3-bed semi, larger house. And with/without solar. To include costs and poss savings

[jameslewis]

I think it is clear that if you have or are getting a decent amount of solar panels, it really pays to have battery storage - you just don't get as much value from your panel generated electricity by selling it back to the grid as you do from using it yourself.

[daveprior]

Had my solar pv and givenergy battery 8, 2 works so well. In 8 months I have saved loads

[mikehorner]

Love these film - they cover the basics and cut through the rumours and mutterings of the ‘ill informed’ brilliantly - well done all!

[DanEVSolar]

Great introduction to battery storage. I believe if you buy the battery with solar panels, the battery also qualifies for 0% VAT too. I’ve just started documenting my solar journey on my channel and discuss very similar points.🙂

[robcole]

Had a 4kW PV and 8.2kWh battery system installed in December 22. In the 3 months since I've generated 616 KW, 183 has gone straight to the house, 286 to the battery and 147 back to the grid. So effectively the battery has increased the efficiency of my system from 29% to 76%. That's before you factor in the additional benefit of charging on a low rate tariff on sunshine free days. Not trying to convince anyone of anything, simply sharing my experience if anyone reading is considering solar and batteries.

[guygillmore]

Batteries are VAT free if installed at the same time as solar

[frejaresund]

I have been enjoyed, so thank you for delivering.

[mickdownes]

As other people have mentioned, it is important to check the maximum power your battery/inverter can provide at a given point in time. For example, can you boil a kettle on battery power?

[antoniopalmero]

They do say that if you have to ask then you can’t afford it 😂 . Best deals I can find as of March 2023 are, batteries from fogstar 🇬🇧, solar panels from AB SOLAR 🇬🇧 and hybrid inverters are readily available for about £300 . So 400w panels @ ~ £200 each, 105ah lifepo batteries @ - £370 each, scalable hybrid inverter -£300 . You could make a tidy little system for < £1000 which ain’t too bad .

[mrmidland_traveller]

I had 15kWh battery installed last year. It was £7500 including installation. So a reasonable cost would be about £500/kWh of battery. Using an off peak tariff, even in winter with little solar power, I'm saving >£100/month on my electricity bill. i.e a 16% annual return on investment. Things to consider; the distribution network operator (Western Power) only allows me to charge up my battery at a max of 3kW. Therefore, I would want an off peak tariff of at least 5 hours to have the greatest efficiency. Your inverter will limit the maximum power of discharge as well. I would suggest that installing batteries first would make more economic sense if one can't afford both battery and solar.

[Umski]

I would say there are only 2 logical reasons to get a battery (which is mentioned but not explicit in that if you have neither then it makes no sense at all since you get roughly a 10% loss in the charge/discharge process) - if you have home PV (with excess) or are on a smart tariff where the rate is considerably lower when you can charge it - purely in monetary terms anyway. Even then depending on usage I would say size it to cover your average use through one day - not for any extremes as otherwise you will just end up with pointless excess capacity (and cost) plus a wasted resource. If you have a heat pump or EV then that's another story altogether! Massive batteries for home use may seem nice, but in my opinion they are not likely to be put to full use - much like having an EV that could do 500 miles but rarely does half that in one go on a regular basis...I've just added 5kWh (rough cost £2.5k) to an existing 4kWp PV system - for February alone my import dropped from 100kWh last year to just 12kWh this year - I was quite surprised as Feb didn't seem that sunny but it highlighted that the sizing is appropriate and I wouldn't have has much excess to charge even if the bank was bigger - an extra 2-3kWh might help with reducing import further but £ for £ it would take significantly longer to pay for itself from the savings...if I go down the EV or HP route then sizing up and changing to a smart tariff might make sense....

One thing to note, depending on your invertor/battery system.
Invertor/Battery can't always cover all your home demand if you have to many appliances on at the same time. :)

[erictarzan]

What certification needed as home battery storage installer? Has to be MCS certified installer as well?

[trile]

Hi, I searched but couldn't find a discussion on SOLAR CAR (urban only) solution, which can be in place of electric bike in adverse weather conditions.

[zotter]

Already have one. Can only wish i had done it earlier.

[solartime]

Good introduction to Batt. Storage! Did I miss u saying Energy Storage can be the ultimate option to get off Grid?

[Thej]

Also worth mentioning that batteries work really well with a wholesale energy provider.

[petecousins]

Don't battery installations benefit from 0% VAT if installed WITH solar PV?

[xxwookey]

Are there any batteries other than pylontech with an open interface? Most of them seem to have proprietary interfaces.