Your Battery Storage Journey
Design
Designing an Electrical Energy Storage System (EESS) – or simply, a battery system – is a fine-tuned process, balancing two key factors: your solar system’s surplus energy and your home’s energy consumption. Picture this: Your energy usage leans more towards the evening, while your solar panels bask in the daylight, generating an energy surplus. This scenario is a match made in heaven for battery storage.
Here at Solr, we don’t leave things to chance. We take your annual usage and pair it with our modelling software. This provides an estimate of how much extra energy you could store and therefore, how much less you’d need to take from the grid. For existing Solar panels, we base these calculations on precise export figures. For new installs, we work from our well-verified performance estimates.
Now, batteries aren’t forever. They typically have a lifespan of 10-15 years. Hence, it’s crucial we ensure their viability within this lifecycle.
This is also the stage where we work out if a Hybrid or AC Inverter system would be better suited for your batteries. This decision will depend on your existing equipment and your preferred battery location.
Installation
Once you’ve given the green light after the Quotation phase, things start to get real exciting. That’s when our surveyors come in for a detailed survey – ensuring our installers have all the facts, figures, and fine details they need to get your job done right.
We also arrange for scaffolding and access (if required) – ensuring everything’s in place, safe and secure for our installation crew. Next we would work with yourselves and find a date that works for you. This is your solar journey, after all. We’ll ensure it fits your schedule, not the other way around.
And then, it’s showtime! The day your new Solar PV system starts to take shape. Once the scaffold is up, our skilled teams will install your Solar PV system. Typically this takes anywhere from a single day for a small 2-3kW system, upto around a week for a 50kW commercial system. All this can be done with very minimal distruption to yourselves, and all of our work includes any making good – we strive to leave a job as clean as we found it.
Management
Once your battery system is up and running, that’s when our management stage kicks in – think of it as your post-installation safety net. We won’t just install your system and wave goodbye. No, at Solr, we believe our job is only just beginning when your system is switched on.
To make sure everything’s running as smoothly as a Swiss watch, we provide you with an app for monitoring your array. This nifty bit of tech lets you keep tabs on your system’s performance. It’s like having a personal energy dashboard at your fingertips, showing you in real-time how much energy you’re storing, using, and saving.
All our inverters offer customisation of the battery settings, unlocking some pretty cool features. Take ‘forced charging,’ for instance. Many of our clients benefit from lower night tariffs, so we program the battery to charge from the grid during the night, ready to supply you with cheaper electricity once the daytime tariffs kick in. Some models even support ‘forced discharging,’ letting you export at optimum times if you’re on a variable export rate.
But what if something goes wrong, you might ask? Well, we’ve got you covered. Our dedicated team of experts is always on hand to answer your questions, troubleshoot any issues, and keep your system in peak condition.
With Solr by your side, your journey into renewable energy becomes less about watching your electricity meter, and more about enjoying the fruits of clean, green power. That’s the Solr commitment to you.
Battery Storage – What is it, and do you need it?
Welcome to Solr – where we believe in supercharging your solar experience. More and more households across the UK are stepping up their energy game. They’re not just content with generating their own energy; they’re eager to store it and maximise its use, saving even more money and decreasing their carbon footprint.
For many, this is their first foray into the exciting world of battery storage. We know you’ve got questions. How does it work? Why should you consider it? What’s involved? That’s why we’ve put together this handy guide to help illuminate the process, whether you are an existing solar panel owner, or this is your first step into renewable energy.
We’ve streamlined everything into 3 simple steps: Design, Installation, & Management. So, fasten your seatbelts, it’s time to power up and take a deeper dive into the world of battery storage.
Battery FAQs
In short, no. Great examples where a battery isn’t the right choice are commercial properties that are only manned in the daytime, or very high consumers who wouldn’t export a lot of energy anyway. The best candidates for battery storage are people who aren’t at home during the day, or have very low usage and therefore have a lot of export.
Yes, all of our systems allow batteries to be retrofitted later. There is very little work on our end to add a battery later, so it’s really just the cost of the battery itself that you are paying for.
For most people, with an appropriate sized battery, you could expect to not consume any grid energy for several months of the year. However, due to our short days in the winter, it is very difficult to be totally grid-independent in winter. To do so would require a very large solar array, and would almost never be viable financially.
For safety reasons, all inverters shut down in the event of a power failure. This is so energy produced by your solar array doesn’t travel back to the grid and potentially hurt someone working on the powerlines. There is also the issue that in the event of a power cut, the ground supply from the grid cannot be relied upon. However, we can setup systems with a special EPS (Emergency Power Supply) mode, which will allow usage even during a power failure. There is additional safety measures that need to be installed, along with a separate earth. Get in touch if you wish to learn more.
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