If you’re a homeowner or landlord, and are looking to make the most out of your solar PV panels, our domestic battery storage systems can help you maximise your panel’s capacity. Using stored energy in non-producing conditions (at night or raining), can dramatically reduce your electricity bills and costs, giving your home greater energy independence. Here at Solar Voltaics, we’re able to install solar battery storage as a standalone service, or what we’d recommend, as a total package including solar panels and inverters to those on the south coast.
We offer two of the most advanced battery systems on the market – Tesla Powerwall 2, Givenergy and a SolaX option for homes that have a three-phase supply to manage surplus solar power. Not only do they have excellent storage capacity and warranties, but they are designed to integrate with smart energy tariffs such as Octopus Agile and Octopus Go. By pairing these batteries with a ‘time of use’ tariff, you can significantly cut down on your energy costs.
With a number of storage systems on the market, we have selected the Tesla Powerwall 2 and Givenergy as our advanced battery system choices – these systems are renowned for their extensive storage capacity and durable warranties, and are compatible with smart energy plans such as Octopus Agile and Octopus Go.
Powerwall’s lithium ion battery inherits Tesla’s proven automotive battery technology to power your home safely and economically. An integrated inverter reduces external components, which simplifies and lowers installation costs. Powerwall is a completely automated system that requires no maintenance. The Tesla Powerwall 2 AC is a fully integrated AC battery system for residential or light commercial use. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack provides energy storage for solar self-consumption, load shifting and backup power.
Hybrid inverters are ideal when installing solar and battery storage at the same time. The hybrid inverter converts DC power from the solar panels into AC mains power, but also manages when to charge and discharge the battery. Because all this happens in one unit it reduces the overall cost of the system whilst maintaining high efficiencies.
AC Coupled inverters are ideal where a solar PV system is already installed with an existing inverter. The addition of the AC coupled coupled inverter is purely for managing the battery charge and discharge.
The solar PV system on your roof will generate electricity during the day that you can use in your home. Without a means of storing that solar electricity, any surplus energy that you don’t use is ‘exported’ to the local grid. During times when the panels are no longer generating (or not generating enough for your needs), you need to buy electricity back from your electricity supplier.
Adding a battery to your solar PV system allows you to store the excess energy produced and keep it to use at a later date, often at night or when the panels are not generating enough power for your home. You will export less to the grid, but in turn you will also use less from the grid, saving you money on your electricity bill.
A fully-charged medium-sized system could store sufficient energy to power during the evening your lights and lower-powered items like your fridge-freezer, TV and laptop. Over four or five hours, all of these together will use at most a few “units” or kiloWatt-hours (kWh), of electricity. However, the battery will quickly run out if you put on high energy use devices like the washing-machine or tumble-dryer: these can consume 2 – 3kWh in a single use. The higher capacity your battery is, the longer you can run your home without buying power from the grid. And in winter, the battery might not receive enough energy from your solar panels to provide for even the lower-powered items for many hours. You can compensate for this though by automatically charging your battery up at night on a cheap off-peak tariff.
If you have a medium to high consumption of energy, it is likely that a battery alongside your solar will be beneficial. We use our software to calculate how much of the battery you will use with your property’s consumption and can compare what your usage would be with and without a battery. You can then decide which system will work best for you and your energy consumption.
Most batteries that we install are rated as IP65, meaning they can be installed outdoors. However they should have a canopy over them to protect them from the elements. They can also be installed inside your property on a wall. They ideally need 300mm clearance around them for ventilation and cooling as well as access for any future maintenance. Dimensions of the batteries can be found on the datasheets.
Despite expectations, some storage systems will not provide power during a power-cut. Some solar battery storage systems however do have an ‘off-grid’ functionality, providing a limited amount of power to your home, or to essential equipment (such as your fridge-freezer, lighting etc). But a battery may run out of power before the power cut ends – or have already run out of power if it’s been discharging all evening and the power outage starts late at night or early in the morning. If you require your battery storage system to provide power during power-cuts it is important to talk this through with us from the outset as the system will need to be carefully designed and set-up to your specific requirements.
A battery’s efficient lifetime depends on the technology and the way the battery is used – significantly on the number of ‘cycles’ (complete full battery charge and discharge) that they undergo. Manufacturers generally give an expected lifetime in years and / or in ‘charge-discharge cycles’.
For example:
‘Life expectancy = 10 years or 10,000 cycles, whichever is the sooner’ Lithium-ion batteries last longer than lead-acid: you may see a 10-year lifetime expectancy claimed and this is improving all the time. Normally the solar battery storage system will monitor the battery performance and should give you an indication when your batteries need replacing.
Adding battery storage to your solar PV system enables you to store any excess solar energy to use in your property at a later date. This means that at night or in low solar weather, the battery can power your property without needing to use the grid. This saves you money on your electricity bills as you will only start buying energy when the battery runs out. Many energy providers now have flexible tariffs where you can use a cheaper night rate tariff to charge your battery too.
Solar Battery storage systems within homes are often provided with a capacity rating in kiloWattHours (kWh). Storage batteries for a grid connected solar PV storage system are typically around 2kW to 20kWh. This is the capability of the battery to provide power. All batteries lose some energy in charging and discharging (typically around 10%), though some have better ‘charge-discharge efficiency’ than others. Most batteries are not designed to be routinely fully discharged (can reduce battery life). Some have deeper discharge capability than others.
Yes! There are some restrictions that may limit how much you can have. We would need to submit another DNO application to see how much solar you will be allowed. This can take a couple of months to come back and they may impose an export limitation on your system.
6 December 2023
This customer had an annual consumption of about 4600kWh and was after some battery storage. We designed a GivEnergy hybrid system with Jinko all black panels. Due to the limited space on the house roof, we designed a system with 2 different sized panels. The house had 420w Jinko panels and the garage roof,
This customer had a 4.2kW system installed over three different roofs, along with a hybrid battery system with 10.4kWh of storage. We used the Clenergy mounting system to fix the panels to the concrete tile roof. The battery storage and inverter are located in the customer’s garage. System details: 10 x Jinko 420w
14 October 2023
This home in Winchester had an annual consumption of around 20,000kWh. The house has a three phase supply, so we chose a SolaX hybrid system with batteries along with a three phase Myenergi Zappi for the customer to charge their electric vehicle. The roofs consisted of mainly flat roof and a small pitched standing seam
Solar Voltaics is accredited under the CHAS (Construction Health and Safety) scheme. We are experienced in working on construction sites and operating to strict safety standards.
All installations are carried out to the standards laid down by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS). We are regularly audited by NAPIT to confirm that our workmanship standards are up to the required quality levels.
At Solar Voltaics we prefer not to sub-contract to other companies. We stand by the quality and professionalism of our installations, because we manage them all with our own professionally trained staff.
We are more than happy to put you in touch with previous clients who can vouch for how we performed for them. Our solar PV experts understand that this is good commercial practice and we have plenty of clients that we can refer you to, including public sector, private companies and institutions in the UK.
Call now to learn how little it takes to get started, and how much you can save when your solar battery storage system is in place.
We don’t do a hard sell. You can have as much or as little information as you like and we won’t hassle you with unwanted follow-up sales calls. Most of our clients want to do their own research and due diligence and we will gladly supply any information you require regarding our trustworthiness and commercial standing.
Solar Voltaics Ltd
Bramley Barn, Main Road
Chichester
West Sussex
PO18 8XA
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