How Does Solar Battery Storage for Your Home Work?
For many homeowners, switching to solar power can take a little nudge. They know in their hearts that it’s the right thing to do—they just need proof that it works. After all, what happens on a cloudy day? Does that mean you have to sit in the dark?
Of course not. Thanks to powerful and effective batteries, solar power doesn’t come and go with passing clouds. Whether you bank that energy for when you need it or send it back through the power grid for instant savings, your embrace of solar power does the world a small favor. We’ll explore how solar battery storage for your home works and how you can benefit.
Creating the Current
Battery storage begins when the sun’s visible light hits your solar panel. As the photons in that light contact the semiconductor in your solar panel, they dislodge electrons from the semiconductor material. The panel’s wires absorb these electrons and form an electrical current that can power your home. They do this all without burning fossil fuels or taking chances with nuclear energy.
AC for Now, Battery for Later
After that current starts flowing, it faces a fork in the road. AC/DC isn’t just a classic rock band; AC and DC are the two forms of electricity that your solar power can yield. Solar panels first convert sunlight into direct-current electricity. However, your home runs on an alternating current. When you plug something into an outlet, that’s AC at work. How does solar battery storage for your home work if you’re creating DC power for an AC system? Simple: a device called an inverter converts DC into AC for use throughout your home. Meanwhile, excess power can flow to your system’s battery.
Selling Power on a Full Battery
On days when the sun generates more solar power than your household needs and your battery is full, you can use that extra energy. Have you ever watched the needle of your energy meter spin and wished it could run backward instead? No one can turn back time, but solar power can turn back meters. If you have surplus energy, you can feed that energy back through the power grid and effectively sell that power back to your utility provider. This is most often an option on sunny days with comfortable temperatures that don’t require you to blast your air conditioning.
Your Battery’s Benefits
With a solar battery, though, you don’t have to send all your surplus power back into the grid. You can save that energy for a rainy day—literally. The SunPower SunVault battery from Earthlight Technologies allows you to store excess electricity for later use, whether at night, during a power outage, or when you’re receiving less solar power. If you experience a blackout, a solar battery can keep the lights on until the power is back. If your utility company charges more for electricity at night than during the day, your battery can provide that power instead and help you save money. And as any solar consumer knows, you save a lot more than money when you use solar panels and batteries.