What is the future of home battery storage?
What is the future of home battery storage?
Electric vehicles are a hot topic at the moment, but an area of the EV world you might not have considered is battery storage. It’s a feature which is being heavily discussed by car manufacturers, as it’s a way of integrating some of the clever tech that you’d find in an electric car into the home.
But how does it work and how could it change the way we use our cars? Let’s take a look.
What is home battery storage?
Home battery storage is a whole new way of thinking about energy. Inside - or outside - your home, you’ll have a large battery which can contain a lot of energy at any given moment. Using this, you can effectively use the battery as a ‘bank’ for energy.
Electric vehicle manufacturers also see this as a key way of helping to charge their vehicles. You can store energy in the vehicle itself, transfer it to the home and then use this to power and heat the house itself. It, therefore, becomes more of a circular journey.
How can it help me?
The idea behind battery storage is the cost-effective movement of energy. The theory is that you can fill these batteries with energy when it’s cheap - such as overnight - then use it again when demand is higher and prices go up.
It’s also a way of charging up an electric vehicle more effectively. If you can take advantage of cheap energy periods, you could store up electricity in your home battery before using it to power your EV.
Where do the batteries come from?
This is the clever bit. Many manufacturers are seeing these batteries as an ideal ‘second life’ solution for the ones in their EVs. So when an electric vehicle’s battery has ceased being useful in a car, it can be removed and used in the home instead.
Even when slightly degraded, electric vehicles will provide more than enough capacity for use within the home.
How are these batteries integrated into the grid?
Second-life battery storage is still very much in its infancy, but the idea behind them is that they’ll be incorporated into a home’s energy system. Through this process, they can be used not only for domestic power but also to help reduce the load on the grid.
For instance, during peak times, homeowners might be able to sell any energy they’ve got stored and in surplus back to the grid.
Will I be able to top up these batteries in other ways?
Yes. Home solar panels will be a key way in which these batteries can be topped up, taking advantage of clean and sustainable energy. It also means that any energy generated in this way could be sold back to the grid for quite a profit to the owner.
However, you will, of course, have to offset this with the cost of the solar panel installation. In doing so, you could radically reduce the cost of running an electric vehicle, too.
