Are solar backup batteries worth the cost?

Live life uninterrupted with solar backup batteries and their power.

A couple of good questions to ask when choosing if a battery is right for your home:

1. Are you wishing to save on utility costs?
2. Do you intend on reducing your carbon footprint?
3. Would you like the peace of mind in outages, blackouts, and natural disasters?

A ‘yes’ to any of these questions then a solar backup battery is worth the investment!

Solar panels on the roof are constantly producing power during regular sunny daytime hours. In fact, much of this energy is not demanded by the home at one time, so typically panels generate more power than can be used within a day. Instead of letting surplus electricity go to waste, the solar energy system feeds this unused power back to the grid.

But did you know when the electric grid goes down, solar panels don’t actually continue receiving electricity? Once the grid is down, power line staff are needed to get out and get to fixing the problem. Of course, if there is live current anywhere along the power grid, they can not work. 

If the solar array could continue feeding power into the grid during a power shutdown, live electricity would still flow into the grid and line staff would be threatened. Therefore, when operating and fixing the grid, your system automatically shuts down power output.

Fortunately, all of this has a perfect solution. Continuous current is provided and during an electrical grid outage with a battery backup unit. So, with an autonomous solar energy battery backup system, you can still experience power, even if everything around you goes black.

Notable advantages of adding a battery to a solar energy system:

1. A solar backup batteries are completely silent while a gas generator is rather noisy.
2. Energy independence is gained with an energy storage system. 
3. When the grid fails, you immediately start battery power without any delay. There is always a delayed operation with generators, on the other hand. This can be a real inconvenience, where unimpeded power is a must. It could impact medical requirements or cause disruption in normally uninterrupted internet connections.
4. While solar backup batteries consume some storage space, it is normally much less than a generator would. They don’t even require the degree of clearance a generator and its fuel requires.
5. You can relax as the news starts to warn of possible storm events. You know that you will not be left in the dark with a battery backup!
6. Avoid surging energy prices. Energy providers frequently increase their prices at specific points during the year, so energy costs are constantly increasing steadily. These prices and peak charges can be avoided with a battery. Even if the solar panels do not yield electricity, your home will still operate on stored energy from the energy storage system. 
   • Check to see if your utility has a Time-of-Use rate that encourages you to use less expensive solar energy that you have already generated and stored in your battery. Using this will help you reduce electrical charges at more expensive time periods. If your solar panels make money from your utility provider via net metering, the energy the panels generate is around 2-3 times more valuable than sending it to the utility company for repayment. If your solar panels make money from your utilities provider from a net metering program, the electricity produced by the panels is around 2-3 times more valuable than sending it back to the utility company. In an energy storage unit, you can save the energy reserve to fuel your home at night or during an outage, instead of letting the clean electricity go to waste.

Additionally a full home energy management monitoring system is included in each battery unit. With it, you can see how your home creates and consumes electricity at any given moment. Using the battery-specific app, you can track your home energy devices and savings in real time.

At CSUSA we are proud to be a certified installer for all the major battery brands on the market today including, Tesla Powerwall, sonnen, Enphase IQ Battery, and Generac EverVolt. When you’re ready to claim your energy independence, give us a call at 770.485.7438.