What if you could use your solar panels in bad weather? Technology now offers options to store solar energy in individual batteries. Elon Musk’s company, Telsa, also offers a solution for individuals.
Investing or not in solar panels is a puzzle faced by many people. In question? The vagaries of the weather, on which photovoltaic panels depend to work. Sunny weather may require reselling the surplus energy to EDF . Conversely, a gloomy sky makes solar panels useless. A convoluted situation, which explains in part the low number of households equipped in France . In 2017, only 2% of the energy consumed in France was attributable to solar panels reported by the RTE (Electricity Transmission Network). A disenchantment that technology tries to solve by focusing on an original solution: self-consumption.
Using batteries that store solar energy , it is possible to use the electricity produced by photovoltaic panels. Owners do not have to worry about bad weather anymore. The first price for a battery (4800 euros, all the same) offers a capacity of 2.5 kWh. Engie has partnered with the manufacturer Sonnen and offers panel installation offers with battery included. Count more than 11,000 euros for 6 solar panels with storage technology. Prices vary according to your consumptionand the number of people who make up the home. Financing solutions are proposed by the company: over 10 years, the starting 11,300 pounds can be divided monthly. But in any case, it is wise to compare its energy expenditure with the cost of the investment.
Other offers are also on the market: the car manufacturer Tesla offers its own battery model. The price of a single copy goes up to more than 6500 pounds, but it has a higher storage capacity (10 kWh). The company of Elon Musk aims more particularly the owners of electric cars. These, logically, have higher energy needs than the average individual. On the Tesla website, it is possible to calculate the number of batteries required depending on the size of your home, or the use of a pool pump, an air conditioner … But here again, the Precaution is required: the sun must be studied before choosing a specific solution.
Difficult to draw conclusions about the profitability of this technology. If, as Engie points out, a family living in the south of Nice can produce 96% of its electricity, not all individuals benefit from these conditions. Another track is thus studied by Engie, in cooperation with Tesla: the creation of “storage communities”, currently under experimentation in Australia . The two companies connected 1,200 homes in the city of Adelaide, all equipped with solar panels with collective batteries. The recovered energy is then centralized and distributed according to the needs of the households.
