The personal power station is becoming a more common phenomenon in the household every day. Thousands of people have already installed solar panels for themselves. Many of them have also taken the next step, which is the introduction of energy storage to store the energy produced in domestic conditions and consume it at the appropriate time. There are solutions available on the market in a wide variety of price ranges and with different functions. So how to still choose the right energy storage for your home and what indicators to monitor when choosing?
Energy storageWhen choosing, it is important to ensure that the purchased solution is reliable, reliable and that the recorder meets the energy needs of your household.
This means that when choosing an energy storage device, you should first find out your average home energy consumption. The duty cycle of the recorder is one day, and the most optimal is to make the calculation on the daily consumption of the winter period. This will provide an opportunity to charge the recorder at night and consume the electricity stored during the day. In summer, the stored energy will also go on to cover the energy needs of the night.
The next decision point when choosing an energy storage device is the power of the inverter. The inverter must be exactly large enough to cover the simultaneous start-up of all household appliances in your home. Let's say your home consumes an average of 3 kWh of electricity per hour on winter days. Putting a heat pump, boiler, sauna, stove and water kettle into operation at the same time, the load can temporarily increase several times.
If the consumption is higher than the maximum permissible load of the inverter, then it can unbalance the home electrical system. You can estimate the power you need from your consumption graph. Put all the equipment to work and see how much electricity consumption is, so you can get the maximum power.
Many buyers of energy storage fall victim to the mistake of acquiring the cheapest device for themselves or a recorder with a minimum capacity, thinking that additional volume can be added to it later. Unfortunately, this may not always be possible.
If, however, it should be established that the battery of the energy storage device purchased is not sufficient to cover the consumption needs of the home, it is necessary to examine whether it is possible to add additional batteries to the system. Inevitably, in all batteries, a certain chemical reaction occurs over time, which reduces the capacity of the batteries, which can lead to the fact that the new batteries purchased do not work with the used batteries or have a lower efficiency.
Thirdly, it must be taken into account that the technology of energy storage is developing with great momentum. If you buy a small energy storage device today, you may encounter a situation in which you will not be able to purchase additional batteries after two years, because the new modules will no longer be compatible with the previous ones.
Therefore, the recommendation is to think longer in advance when investing in energy storage and buy a device with a slightly larger battery than save on it.
It is also important to examine whether the offered energy storage systemis single-phase or three-phase. In Estonian households, three-phase electricity is generally used. For example, a heating boiler most often needs an industrial three-phase current. If the consumption load is higher, then a single-phase system is not enough, because it can only cover the energy needs of the lighting and the television.
In most cases, in a three-phase electrical system, the electrical load is distributed over the phases. However, the concern of the three-phase system is asynchrony. That is, if one phase is overloaded, the recorder can begin to consume electricity directly from the network through the unloaded phases. So it may be that even if it is desired to use the stored energy, the home power grid can still consume energy from the grid.
The charging and discharging of the energy storage battery is controlled by the BMS (battery management system). If the system has an inefficient BMS in use, then it can reduce the battery life, as a result of which the speed of charging and discharging the battery becomes slower.
Wanting to fully charge the battery at cheaper hours, the device may not fully charge itself in this time, and the real potential of the battery will remain unused.
Surely it will come before energy storageSelect to study how the system has solved the back-up function. Owners of solar panels probably know that if there is a failure in the network, then electricity can also be lost, since the inverter is not able to maintain the frequency in the home electrical network.
A similar situation can arise if an energy storage tank is attached to the place of consumption. To avoid this, you need to find out even before buying whether a particular device can hold the frequency and function as an off-grid power plant without a network. The presence of this function becomes decisive precisely in the event of power outages. Some recorders may also become single-phase as a result of an outage or only provide current through a plug on the recorder.
The fire prevention system is an extremely important parameter for choosing an energy storage device, and simpler models may not have this function. A fire prevention system is a mechanism that is triggered in the event of a fire, and the function is intended to make the system safe.
The absence of this mechanism may lead to the obligation of the rescue board to build a separate fire zone for the energy storage. In addition, the lack of a fire prevention function is a serious risk to the household, in case a failure occurs in the system.
More before energy storagewhen buying, it should also be clarified whether the recorder has an application or a control system that takes into account energy prices and allows tracking analytics. An energy storage device without a control function is only a half-way solution.
Maximum savings can be achieved with an energy storage device if it also has a smart control system that takes into account both current consumption and all other inputs, including energy prices. The control system must allow real-time monitoring of the device and the analysis of data in order to optimize its energy consumption, identify problems and make more informed decisions about its energy use.
The last and most important thing is to find out if the energy storage has a long-term warranty and reliable customer support that offers assistance with installation, setup and maintenance.
When searching for devices on the Internet, you can find bargain offers, but they may not come with the necessary customer support. Thus, the installation and maintenance of a new device can turn into a decent headache, in the worst case even money thrown away.
Choosing the right energy storage and finding a good partner is an important prerequisite for getting the most out of your new device. By choosing an energy storage device with the right capacity and the necessary functions, you can feel confident in your home. This is also when the lights on the rest of the street are off and the electricity is off.
