With the promotion of discounted electricity policies and the increased frequency of grid outages, the convenience of adding solar batterys to your own solar system comes into play. So do you know anything about how many solar batterys you need for your home? It doesn’t matter if you don’t know, in this article we’ll give you an overview of the number of solar battery you’ll need for your home and related issues.
1. Calculate the number of solar batteries you need?
In solar energy systems, only off-grid solar systems and hybrid solar systems require solar battery. For these two cases, the number of solar battery needed will be different. Below we will calculate the number of solar battery in detail, depending on whether the solar system is connected to the grid or not.
Grid-tied solar system
For a grid connected solar system, the grid can supply power to your home when your solar battery run out of power, avoiding temporary power outages in your home. In this case, the number of solar battery you need will be reduced accordingly. You can calculate the number of solar battery by following the steps below.
Estimate the amount of electricity your family uses in the morning and at night: With a grid-connected solar system, you don’t need to worry about having enough solar batterys in reserve for your family’s use. So you only need to reserve power for the morning and evening of the day. You can estimate your morning and evening power usage based on the amount of electricity your household uses in a day and the amount of electronic devices you use in the morning and evening.
Determine the capacity of the solar battery: For batteries for solar systems that are not connected to the grid, we recommend that you choose a larger capacity solar battery. 10kwh Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are more common for solar systems that are not connected to the grid for the average home. However, we generally do not recommend 100% discharge for solar batteries, it is better for solar batteries when they are discharged at 80%. Of course, you can also choose other types of solar battery according to your actual choice.
Once you know the above two data, you can calculate the number of solar battery blocks by the following formula.
The number of blocks of solar battery = the energy reserve you need / (capacity of solar battery * 80%)
For example, your family uses 30kwh of electricity in a day, and the electricity used in the morning and the evening is half of the day, and the capacity of the solar battery you chose is 10kwh, then the number of blocks of solar battery you need will be (30kwh/2)/(10kwh*80%) ≈ 2 blocks.
Off-grid solar system
For an off-grid solar system, it is completely disconnected from the grid, which means that all of your home’s electricity comes from the solar panels. Such an off-grid solar system may require a higher number of solar battery. You can calculate the number of solar battery by following the steps below.
Estimate the amount of energy you will need to reserve: For off-grid solar systems, you will need to reserve a few days’ worth of electricity in advance in case your home loses power due to weather conditions. The amount of energy you intend to reserve will have a direct impact on the number of batteries that can be used. We generally recommend that solar systems that are not connected to the grid have at least 3 days’ worth of energy in reserve, but you will have to make a reasonable decision on how much to reserve based on the weather conditions in your area.
Next, you can calculate the number of solar batteries by following the same steps as in the first calculation.
If your family uses 30kwh of electricity per day, and you need to reserve 4 days of electricity in your living area, and you choose 10kwh solar battery, then the number of solar battery you need is (30kwh*4)/(10kwh*80%) = 15.
2. Cost of solar battery
In today’s solar battery market, the cost of a 10kwh lithium iron phosphate battery is about $1200. So for a solar system connected to the grid, if your home consumes 15kwh in the morning and 15kwh in the evening, and you need two 10kwh lithium iron phosphate batteries, the cost of your solar battery will be $2400. When your solar system is not connected to the grid When your solar system is not connected to the grid, if your household uses 30kwh per day, and you have to reserve power for 4 days, you need 15 pieces of 10kwh solar batteries, and the cost of your solar battery reserve is $18,000.
3. How to reduce the cost of solar battery?
Use hybrid energy system: For the solar energy system completely off the grid, in order to have a stable power support for your family, you need to buy a lot of solar batteries, which requires you to have enough cost, but if you want to reduce the cost of solar batteries, you can actually use hybrid energy system in this way, for example, wind-solar hybrid system, solar hybrid energy system with generator, these are all good choices.
Reduce the amount of home energy consumption: When you need more solar battery, it also means that the amount of energy consumed by your family is more, so as long as you can reduce the use of energy in the home, you do not need to reserve so much big energy, and naturally need to essentially reduce the cost of solar battery.
Conclusion:
We have already introduced you to the number of solar battery you need for your home, but this calculation is only a rough estimate, and the exact number of solar battery you need may change due to the difference in daily electricity consumption and the discharge of the batteries. You need to determine the number of solar battery according to the actual situation.
