California home battery storage is a critical part of a solar energy setup you can count on. The batteries store excess energy produced during peak sunlight hours for use on cloudy days. Discover how a solar battery works, the top brands to consider buying, and the reasons to add one to your solar energy installation.
How Do Solar Batteries Work?
Solar batteries store surplus energy from solar panels to power your home. While your solar panels convert sunlight into electricity to power your household appliances, your appliances often cannot use all the energy your panels produce. Likewise, on cloudy days, you may have trouble generating enough solar energy, making surplus energy helpful.
Made mostly of lead-acid or lithium-ion, solar batteries act as a rechargeable battery source, drawing energy from the sun. Solar batteries create an electrical current to power home plug-in devices.
Top Solar Battery Storage Brands
While there are many California home solar battery brands, not all deliver optimal service. Substandard brands have limited capacity, shorter lifespans, and less reliable performance. To ensure your money goes to a top model, here are the best brands to buy.
1. Tesla Powerwall 3
The Tesla Powerwall 3 has an impressive capacity of 13.5 kWh and a continuous power rating of 11.5 kWh. The superior performance ensures you can count on this battery storage when your panels cannot produce enough power.
2. Enphase IQ Battery
The Enphase IQ Battery boasts an excellent capacity, as it can store enough power to run energy-intensive appliances like HVAC systems. Moreover, this battery has an app that lets you monitor your energy production and consumption in real time.
Reasons To Consider California Home Solar Battery Storage
Your California home solar batteries don’t just store surplus energy to use at night and on days when your panels cannot produce enough. There are multiple other benefits you’d get upon adding the batteries to your installation, including:
- NEM 3: A solar battery helps you take advantage of NEM 3 and get more value for surplus energy. In particular, the battery holds your surplus energy, so you sell it when utility companies are likely to buy the power at a higher rate.
- Energy Independence: An excellent solar battery enables you to cut your reliance on grid power. The battery stores energy to power your home on days when there is little sunshine.
- Financial Savings: A solar battery saves costs by reducing reliance on fluctuating prices for grid power. Moreover, the batteries can qualify you for various financial incentives that can help you save even more.
- Environmentally Friendly Solution: Solar batteries make your solar energy system more reliable. As such, with a good battery, you will help mitigate climate change and preserve natural resources for future generations.
- Elimination of Noise Pollution: Solar batteries operate silently compared to traditional generators used as power backups.
Solar Battery Storage Incentives
Investing in a California home solar battery qualifies you for multiple incentives, maximizing the battery’s cost-effectiveness. The Self-Generation Incentive Program offers a $150 per kWh incentive for energy storage capacity installation. You can also claim 30% of the battery’s cost as a credit on federal taxes with the Federal Investment Tax Credit.
Enhance Your Solar Power Setup Efficiency With Battery Storage
Beyond storing surplus solar energy for future use, adding a solar battery to your solar energy setup provides energy independence and qualifies you for several incentives. At Solar Optimum, we offer industry-leading residential battery storage solutions to give you uninterrupted power. Contact us to learn more about your solar battery storage options.