Battery Brand

Many consumers in this market are looking not just for solar to provide them the stability of low energy pricing, but the security of energy availability due to increasing concerns of grid outages, especially in Texas where the ability of the grid to function in certain conditions has been proven to be dubious. There are two major ways to have backup functionality during an outage, a generator or battery backup/energy storage solution (ESS). We are going to focus on battery backup here, if you would like to learn more about generator options, please follow this link.

There are two factors when it comes to sizing your energy storage solution – instantaneous usage and time. Your instantaneous usage is defined in kW, or the amount of power you will consume at any one time. This is typically done with a comprehensive load analysis where all of the items you want to have backed up are listed along with their rated power so that we can see what will be used when. The more you want to use all at once, the more power your system needs to be able to handle.

For the sake of information, here are the usages of a few items to consider:

It is important to note that some appliances have a surge rating. These are usually appliances with motors that require extra power for a brief moment to start – more power than you need to run them once they start. This is important because if you exceed the surge rating of your equipment, it will shut down for protection.

The second factor is energy, or how much power you use over time, which is measured in kWh. If you have (10) 100W light bulbs turned on, you are using 1,000W or 1 kW of power right at that instant. If you leave those bulbs on for one hour, you will have used 1 kWh of energy. If you have (20) 100W light bulbs turned on, you are using 2 kW of power, and if you let them run for 30 minutes, then you still have used 1 kWh of energy. The more power you use and the longer you use it, the more energy you need. When you run out of stored energy, your backed up equipment shuts down.

In some ways, these numbers are related, but in others, they are not. Some people need a LOT of power, but only for a short period of time, some people only need a little power, but want it to last a very long time. Some people want a balance. With some battery systems, they are paired – every time you add kWh of storage, you increase the kW of demand you can have. With other systems, they are mutually exclusive and you can add storage and demand in independent intervals. Your needs as a consumer are independent of anyone else’s and as such, what works for you might not work for someone else.

Your cost for a system is based on these items and your willingness to “sacrifice” during an outage event. If you want to have just the essentials – cold beer, TV, and a room AC unit/fan with a cell phone charger, you can get some reasonably cost effective solutions. If you want to continue on as if you never even knew the power was out with your hot tub, pool pump, 10,000 sqft house that has (5) 5-ton AC units, and your indoor ice skating rink, well then, the cost can be quite extravagant. There is literally nothing that cannot be accomplished with battery backup, the question is always – “are you willing to pay what it takes to make it work” – and the answer is typically, people want the world from a system designed to do minimal loads.

So, what battery systems should I choose? Well, IES offers three systems. Why only three systems? We believe these fit the needs of our consumers, offer the best quality and long term support. We do not offer every possible system out there for a reason – they are not all equal, they are not all good, they are not all going to have long term support and/or good product quality. As an example, we do not offer Generac’s PWRcell Product; why, because it is not theirs. Generac bought a company called Pika and then rebranded it as Generac. Pika made a poor product before they were bought and it is no different now that Generac has their name on it. Just like Generac buying Chilicon Power’s microinverter – a very low quality product with very low market share. We also do not offer Tesla’s Powerwall. Tesla is great at many things, but not solar. The Powerwall is a low cost product, but not a good product.

Enphase IQ Batteries

Our first, go-to product for storage consumers in Enphase Energy’s IQ Battery System. This pairs with what is our default offering for all customers, the Enphase IQ Microinverter. This is a kitted system where the kW of demand and the kWh of storage are paired together, everytime you add a unit, what you can backup and how long it can run increases together. While there is a 3 kWh unit, for all intents and purposes, everything runs off of the 10 kWh units.

Every 10 kWh unit can handle 3.84 kW of instantaneous usage. If you ran the system at 100%, that means that you could go for 2.6 hours (10÷3.84) before the battery ran out. Now, 3.84 kW is not a lot of power; if we look at our table above, (1) Fridge, (10) LED Lights, (1) TV, (1) WiFi Router, (2) Mobile Chargers, (1) Laptop), (1) Microwave), and (1) Well Pump and you are at 3.46 kW. The surge capacity of the well pump puts you at 4.56 kW when it starts running, but the unit can handle short term surges of up to 5.7 kW, so we are okay there.

So, if you just want to have some basic stuff – very basic – this would be okay for you. If you want to include almost anything else – like an AC Unit, you are going to need to look at more than one 10 kWh unit to increase your instantaneous capacity and your surge capacity to handle larger loads and longer run times. You can have up to (4) of these units stacked together giving you 40 kWh of storage and 15.36 kW of demand with 22.8 kW of surge capacity. Your solar will recharge the batteries during the day, and you can pair a generator with this system so that if you are not recharging fast enough or you run out of power overnight, the generator can supplement and keep you going. With these options, the Enphase system can either support a small backup loads panel or your whole home; it just depends on what options you select.

Adding an IQ Battery Backup will cost between $16,500 and $50,000 most typically to your home’s PV system before you factor in the 30% federal tax credit.

QCELL Q. HOME Storage

QCELL makes a system that is designed to fill a specific need in the marketplace. The Q.HOME product supports a backup loads subpanel. It does not handle your entire home, nor should you really try to make it handle your entire home. The inverter can be the only inverter in the system, handling both the DC from the solar on the roof and your batteries, or it can just handle the batteries if you have Enphase or another brand of solar inverter. It is specifically designed though to handle one single load panel with just enough solar to support that panel during an outage – not everything under the sun or a huge PV system staying online during the outage.

You can support around 32A or 7.6 kW and you can have up to (3) batteries in 4.5 or 6.3 kWh units (4.5/9/13.5 kWh or 6.3/12.6/18.9 kWh). Each battery is 2.56 kW of that support though, so each time you add a battery, you increase the total you can support during an outage. You cannot add a generator to this system, your solar is the only thing that recharges the batteries during an outage event.

This system might “seem” like a lower quality or bad deal by comparison to the Enphase system, but it is not, it is simply made to fill a certain need that is not the same. Customers who are only looking for what this system does will be very happy with this product and can ultimately save a significant amount of money vs. the Enphase option to do exactly what they need. It is about having the right solution to the right problem. A Q.HOME system with 18.9 kWh that supports 7.6 kW will cost 15% less than an 20 kWh/7.68 kW IQ Battery system – and if you use the Q.HOME as the DC Inverter in situations where that makes sense, you can save an additional 7-10% or so on the associated PV system installation making it a very attractive option for the savvy consumer.

Sol-Ark

When your project doesn’t fit the mold of one of the two above options, we turn to Sol-Ark. Sol-Ark inverters are mutually exclusive of the batteries they connect to, meaning that we can have any size kW demand with any size kWh storage need by custom configuring the system. We can add any size generator and virtually any size PV system as well so that you can truly have a system that meets any need. Sol-Ark is typically our most expensive option, but it is our most robust option, and when it comes to designing a system that has any and all of the versatile options necessary to accommodate a variety of solutions, you have to pay that premium.

Just as QCELL was not lower quality than Enphase, Sol-Ark is not higher quality, it is just different. It is a more robust product with significantly more features and technology built into it that allows it to handle different situations. For 95% of our consumers, moving to a Sol-Ark based system would provide them no additional benefits over an Enphase system and simply cost them more money. But that other 5%, those people who are looking for something very specific or want to exceed the design limitations of what Enphase can offer – these customers need a solution that is not a “kit” but a series of components that we can design to their needs with. This is what Sol-Ark provides us, a very sophisticated backbone with which to design that ultimate solution.

There are other products on the market that we could use to fill this particular niche. We chose Sol-Ark for a few reasons. They are American Made, they are Veteran owned and most of their employees are US Veterans, their service and support teams are all based here in the US (Plano, TX), and the lion share of their sales are to the US Government, meaning they are a stable company that doesn’t rely on the solar-coaster for all of their revenue, so we are confident in their long term ability to service and warranty their product.

The cost of a Sol-Ark based battery system is a “the sky is the limit” kind of concept. These systems start in and around $20,000, but have literally been over $1.5M for customers who had compounds with multiple homes/guest homes, pools, saunas, EV Chargers, etc., and wanted to be able to survive without the grid for extended periods of time. Typical systems range from $75,000 to $250,000 depending on exact specifications and requests.

If you are considering switching to solar for your home or business, reach out to us by going to our website, iestxsolar.com, or by giving us a call at (855) 447-6527.