Earnings from the return of electricity that you generate with solar panels is restricted by the phasing out of the net metering scheme. Is storing that electricity in a home battery a good idea?
A home battery is used in combination with solar panels. With such a battery, you can store your self-produced solar energy at home and return less of the surplus generated power to the electricity grid.
Now that the net metering scheme for solar panels – whereby owners can offset their generation with their consumption – is hanging by a thread and you therefore receive less money for your returned power, the question looms as to how we can use more solar power ourselves. Is it convenient to store your electricity at home?
“A battery is not necessarily sustainable,” says Thijs ten Brinck, energy specialist and founder of the WattisSustainable platform. The production has a significant environmental impact and you can only make up for that if you store a lot of solar power that would otherwise have been lost. “But usually there is also a neighbor on a sunny afternoon who can use your surplus immediately.”
How much power can a home battery store?
A home battery can – depending on its size – store between 2 and 12 kilowatt hours. According to information organization Milieu Centraal, this is not enough in the summer to store all the solar power that you do not use immediately, and in the winter your panels usually supply too little to fill your battery. So you can’t live all winter on your extra generation in the sunny months.
According to Ten Brinck, you can also think about a home battery from an economic point of view. “You keep part of your energy behind the door, so you pay less energy tax because you have to buy less energy,” he says.
If you switch on the dishwasher or washing machine when your panels supply power, the percentage you use yourself will already increase to 35 percent.
Mariken Stolk, Environment Central
On the other hand, you have to dig deep into your pockets for a home battery. An average home battery, which stores 6 kWh, costs between 4,000 and 5,000 euros. There is no subsidy for this (yet). Ten Brinck is not in favor of that either. “There will then be a subsidy that can make it possible not to pay energy tax. That feels a bit crooked.”
Relieving the load on the electricity network
A home battery also relieves the electricity grid, because people with solar panels supply less power to the grid. “That is indeed possible, but only if it is agreed that you only charge them when the sun shines brightest,” says Martien Visser, professor of Energy at Hanze University Groningen.
“In practice, I foresee that they will be charged immediately in the morning. After all, you never know. Moreover, they will also be charged on winter days when there is a lot of wind at sea. Then batteries can actually give rise to extra network load.” According to Visser, you just need to have room for a home battery; they usually take up 1 square meter.
Bad for the Environment?
Milieu Centraal says that the benefit for the power grid is small: after all, the grid for households is sometimes briefly overloaded. That organization calls a home battery “not yet recommended”. Because the way in which a home battery is made, with metals such as lithium, copper and nickel, is also not very environmentally friendly. Milieu Centraal would rather see the storage of solar power organized on a larger scale, for example at district level.
According to Milieu Centraal, a household with solar panels now directly consumes 30 percent of the generated electricity. So 70 percent goes back to the grid. It would be better to look at how you can make better use of your own solar power, says Mariken Stolk of that organisation. “If you turn on the dishwasher or washing machine when your panels supply power, the percentage you use yourself will already go to 35 percent.”
The well-known meteorologist Helga van Leur therefore came up with an ‘energy weather report’, to see when it is best to use your generated power.
Unfortunately, this content cannot be displayed. We do not have permission for the necessary cookies. Accept the cookies to view this content.
Change cookie settings
:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/S6CJF75D7NDR3AZBPT5QJJ3UY4.jpg)
