A solar battery is where your solar system stores any excess energy that is surplus to what your home is consuming. When that happens, the system will charge your home battery and if the battery is full of charge, the excess will go back to the grid.
When you have energy consumption that is more than what your solar system is producing, the battery will discharge. The battery generally does not discharge to the grid unless specified to, in most cases it will only discharge to household loads .
Home batteries can only charge and discharge at a certain rate (It should not go 0-100% immediately) and this is different for each battery.
How do batteries help in a power outage?
The back-up available in the event of a power outage is based on whether the battery you have purchased is DC-coupled, has backup circuits, and whether the battery has enough charge at the time. If you have a power cut in the early morning (6am – 9am) for example, it is most likely the battery won’t have enough charge to sustain power for long.
Back-up can only cover certain circuits, not your entire home. This is relative to the discharge capacity of your particular battery. Batteries should not be used to back up systems that someone’s health relies on as if the battery runs out of charge it will turn off. Backup can never be guaranteed, and items such as medical devices or crucial IT devices, should never be backed-up using solar.
Your solar consultant/sales person can recommend the best battery for your solar system to work with your home’s energy needs . It is important you understand how batteries and backups work when purchasing. Make sure you ask about batteries, backups, emergency power supplies, and the differences between them all.
Read more about what happens in a power cut here.
