How a home battery can help you save on your energy bill
Home batteries were created to serve as a backup power source for your home and keep everything running when the power goes out. But that’s not the only thing they are good for.
You can also use home batteries to save on your electric bill and store energy generated by a solar panel system. The reasons why someone would choose to purchase a battery are actually fairly evenly divided. A recent study found that 33% of homeowners who purchase a home battery want to use it to save on energy bills. Meanwhile, 29% of homeowners plan to use their battery for self-sufficiency and 28% for backup power.
But don’t feel like you have to choose one reason over the other. On most older home battery models, backup power was given the highest priority, so that didn’t leave much room for anything else, and that was fine. But home battery technology has evolved. You can have backup power And savings on bills.
These are just a few ways your home battery can save you money on your energy bills.
Cheat on time-of-use rates
If your electric company charges time-of-use rates, a home battery can really help you. Certain utilities charge more for electricity at certain times of the day, sometimes even double what you would normally pay. These are called time-of-use rates. These expensive rates kick in when electricity demand is highest, usually during the early morning and evening hours when everyone is home, known as peak hours.
With a home battery you can cheat the system. Instead of paying extra for power during peak hours, you can use the stored energy from your battery to power your home during these hours. You then recharge your battery when rates return to normal. This cycle works even better if you have solar panels. Instead of charging your battery with electricity from the grid, which you still pay for, you can choose to charge your battery with solar energy.
The best part is you don’t have to worry about when to switch to battery power, or even when time-of-use rates come into effect. Most home batteries on the market today are equipped with special algorithms designed to manage your energy for you. While your installer is setting up your battery, they are entering your electric company into the battery’s software. From there, your battery can find your utility company’s electricity rates and schedule the optimal times to deploy or charge battery power – just set it and forget it.
Connect your battery to solar panels
Solar panels and home batteries are virtually a match made in Heaven. Your solar panels generate electricity, while your battery stores it for later use. This is especially useful on days when your solar panel system generates more power than what your home needs. Instead of wasting it, you can send all the excess power to a battery that you can use when you need it.
And that stored energy can be used for all kinds of situations. The first thing that comes to mind is probably backup power, which is always nice to have during unexpected power outages. But you can also use your stored solar energy to power your home with solar energy at night, or to cheat the usage time.
A home battery is especially useful to have on hand in certain states where net metering policies are less than favorable. Net metering is the process of selling your excess solar energy to the utility company by feeding it back into the electric grid. The amount you are reimbursed all depends on the net metering laws in the area. Home batteries tend to be more popular in states like California, Georgia, Hawaii and Tennessee, all states where you are compensated less for any excess solar energy you sell to the utility than you are for electricity from the grid.
Join a virtual power plant
Virtual Power Plants (VPP) are another way you can use home batteries to reduce your electric bill and even reduce the purchase price of the battery itself. By enrolling your battery in a VPP, it will be one of many batteries you can call on to help support the grid. VPPs are essentially swarms of large batteries that are managed and operated by a local electric utility to control electricity demand. When there is extreme demand on the electricity grid, the utility company will discharge the stored energy from the batteries and send it to the electricity grid. These batteries can also help control the opposite problem: when too much electricity is sent to the grid (usually from solar energy), the batteries are charged via the grid, taking some of the pressure off the grid. illuminated.
But the best thing about joining a VPP is that you get compensated for it, and you don’t even have to do anything. Instead of owning your home battery outright, you share that ownership with the utility company in exchange for the use of your battery. With just a few button presses, the utility charges and discharges your battery when deemed necessary. And you get compensated all the time.
As an incentive to join VPPs, utility companies often offer to pay for a portion of your home battery charge in exchange for your participation. So if paying full price for a home battery isn’t in your budget and you don’t mind sharing, joining a VPP may be worth it. Contact your local utility company to see if they offer VPP programs.
You can still have backup power
Whatever you choose to use your home battery for, backup power remains one of the most important features, and it’s not going away anytime soon. If you choose to join a VPP or use your battery to save on utility bills, you can still do that too.
You can divide the energy storage capacity of your battery to reserve it for certain functions. For example, you can reserve 30% of your battery’s capacity for backup power and then use the rest of the capacity to power your home during peak hours.
If your battery participates in a VPP program, you have less freedom over how much capacity you want to reserve for backup power. This is because you share ownership of the battery with the utility company. However, most utilities typically allow you to reserve at least 20% of the battery’s capacity for backup power. The rest is managed by the energy company. If you are interested in joining a VPP, please contact your local utility company or local installers in your area.
