Some of the established benefits of installing solar panels in your home are lower energy bills, a reduced carbon footprint, and cheaper maintenance costs.
But, acquiring these benefits requires more than choosing the best solar panels, as it also involves shouldering the additional cost of buying a solar battery.
After all, a solar battery storage system allows you to store excess electricity from solar power, allowing you to generate current throughout your home. It allows you to use electric power even in unfavourable weather conditions.
Allow us to help you determine the price of a solar panel's battery, the factors affecting it, and considerations you need to keep in mind. Let's get started!
When you purchase solar panels, you will need a corresponding solar battery to store any excess solar energy.
With stored electricity, you benefit from solar power you've previously generated and stored, even during adverse weather conditions or when solar panels experience problems generating enough electricity.
Before you can think of storing electricity in a solar battery, you must first understand the cost of a solar battery and the factors that make its purchase cheaper or more expensive. Read on!
The first factor that affects how much a battery for solar panels will cost is the quality and type of solar panel you plan on installing.
When buying your solar battery, you must ensure that it is of similar quality and compatible with your solar panel to maintain a well-functioning solar panel system.
The general rule here is that a high-quality, high-end solar panel needs a solar battery with similar characteristics, which would mean higher costs overall.
But, if you have medium to lower-quality solar panels, you can expect that your solar battery will also be of medium to low cost.
Your battery should always be compatible with your panel system.
The second factor is the location of the solar panel and its distance from the solar inverter and the solar battery in a solar PV system. This will allow you to lessen electric voltage loss when transferring excess energy generated.
It adds an extra cost because you need to efficiently create room or space for the solar battery system, facilitating appropriate accessibility, installation, and safety measures.
You can hire professionals to install solar batteries at the optimum location inside your garage, wardrobe, or loft.
The third factor affecting the solar battery cost is the capacity or energy storage they can cater to.
If you have a large house with loads of appliances and fixtures requiring electricity, you must choose a solar panel battery storage system that can generate the amount required to keep your household running.
However, this comes with a much higher price compared to choosing a lower-capacity solar battery storage system with a lower price.
That said, the larger electric battery can provide surplus electricity even during power outages, weather changes, or when your solar panel encounters electricity generation issues.
As mentioned earlier in this section, the battery's quality will significantly affect its pricing. A much higher quality battery can be bought at a higher price.
However, buying a high-quality solar battery has its perks compared to low-end electricity battery alternatives, such as:
There are other factors that affect the price of a solar battery, such as (1) if it utilises an AC or DC current, (2) labour expenses, and the (3) rechargeable battery brand purchased.
Another factor that can affect the cost of a PV battery is whether it stores excess electricity using direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC).
You can expect a lower price range with DC solar batteries than with AC solar batteries. The DC batteries have an average of £7000, while AC battery systems can average £11,000 per battery.
Another factor affecting the price is the labour expense when you hire professional electricians or solar panel installers. While they can efficiently connect your electrical wiring for better and more secure solar battery performance, their services often start at £2000.
The brand of the PV battery can also affect how high or low the cost is. The best course of action is to buy from brands with the following characteristics:
Different solar panel battery storage systems have different prices because of the quality and type of solar panels, location, battery quality, the flow of electricity, and the labour expenses when having them installed.
Regarding solar battery quality, here is a price comparison of different types of solar PV batteries.
Lead acid batteries are a type that has been used for years as a means of storing excess solar electricity using reactions from chemical materials like lead, water, and sulfuric acid.
A lead-acid battery is on the cheaper end of the spectrum when considering the cost of batteries, as its price can range from £2,000 to £5000.
Aside from being cheap, lead-acid batteries are known for the following characteristics:
Lithium-ion batteries, also called Li-ion batteries, are a type of solar battery that is more modern, lightweight, and powerful when storing and releasing solar power.
It stores more electricity as it has a larger storage capacity and, in turn, has a depth of discharge (DOD) of 70% to 90% when you need it (e.g., at night).
Since lithium-ion batteries are more advanced versions that bring out the best in solar panels when attached, their cost is often higher than lead-acid batteries. They usually cost £3,000 to £6,000 per battery.
Moreover, lithium-ion batteries are also used to power the following:
Next in line are nickel-cadmium solar batteries. These are known for their ability to withstand extreme temperatures better than lithium-ion batteries. They're also well-liked for their overall durability.
Despite being well-known for their resilience, Nickel-Cadmium solar batteries are not that common in a household as part of a solar panel system because they are highly toxic.
If you still decide to include this airline and industrial battery staple into your household solar panel system, nickel-cadmium solar batteries cost £1500 to £10,000.
FACT: Some marine solar batteries are made of nickel cadmium, while others are made of lithium-ion.
Last but not least are flow batteries. Flow solar batteries work to store extra electricity through chemical reactions in the two chambers of an individual solar battery.
What makes this solar battery storage system unique is that it offers a 100% discharge rate for stored solar power.
However, when using flow batteries, you must have large tanks to accommodate the higher storage capacity and maximise the battery's ability when discharging and storing surplus electricity.
Flow solar batteries cost an average of £4,000 based on the consumption needs of the average household.
REMEMBER: Nickel-Cadmium and flow batteries are more expensive and can vary from a three-digit to more than five-digit cost because they are typically used in industrial settings.
The average solar battery storage system costs anywhere from £2,000 to £7,500 in the United Kingdom.
However, it can go higher or lower depending on the factors mentioned earlier, the installation cost, and even maintenance.
PRO TIP: You can use a solar panel cost calculator in the UK for a more customised quotation regarding your expenses.
To recap, the factors that can affect the price of a solar battery storage system are the following:
You must remember that the higher quality, type, and capacity of the solar battery you purchase, the higher the cost will be.
We have also mentioned in the previous section that the solar battery storage system cost includes the installation of your batteries and connecting them to the rest of the system.
You can do it yourself (DIY) if you know how the electric wiring works and the proper installation process. However, if you want efficiency, hiring the services of a professional is the way to go for your solar battery endeavour.
The installation of a solar panel costs approximately £2,000 to £20,000, depending on the following factors:
PRO TIP: Know the specifics of solar panel installation and solar panel and battery installation before spending your hard-earned cash and making changes to your house.
You also need to consider the solar battery storage maintenance cost. These often range from £100 to £300 per year, depending on how extensive your maintenance needs are.
However, if you choose lithium-ion batteries, the price for maintaining solar battery storage can be much lower.
Nevertheless, you must consider maintenance costs as your energy storage system must always be in good condition to perform better while giving your home renewable energy.
Here are the services you will be paying for when conducting the maintenance of your energy storage systems:
You must always remember that you are not obligated to buy expensive solar battery storage systems if they are considered overkill for your needs.
On the other end, you cannot save money from solar battery storage systems that are cheap but cannot cater to the entirety of your solar panel systems.
To better understand your solar energy storage systems, here are the things you must be wary of when buying one: energy needs, financing, and solar PV battery usable capacity.
FACT: PV stands for photovoltaic system.
The first thing you need to understand is that the expensive options are not always the top options because the solar system you will need will still depend on the following:
If you think the investment in solar batteries worth it, but costing more than what you can handle, fret not because there's another way to minimise its cost.
When your solar panels generate much more than your household needs and are more than enough for your battery's usable capacity, you can export renewable energy back into the electrical grid.
Exporting stored electricity back to the grid (National Grid electricity) aligns with the UK Government's Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) program. You can receive at least £4 per kWh when you export excess power back to the grid.
This initiative will help you save money and energy costs and help reduce the use of fossil fuels simultaneously.
Here are some of the financing options available in the UK for when you want solar panels installed along with proper solar energy storage via batteries:
The last thing you must remember before purchasing a solar battery at a specific cost is solar panel battery storage and how many batteries you will need to store the energy you can generate.
You can compute how many batteries your solar panel needs by dividing the power output of your solar PV array by the voltage of the energy storage systems.
The benefit of knowing the approximate number of batteries or voltage needed before buying is that you will only buy the equivalent storage capacity you need and not incur a higher cost.
Some of your solar battery-related FAQs are answered in this section. Read on!
A 10 kWh solar battery can last for 24 hours to 30 hours. However, the duration can go lower depending on your usage of excess electricity.
No, you do not need a bigger battery storage system if you do not need it.
As emphasised in the previous section, consider your energy needs when deciding on the capacity of the storage systems.
Purchasing a solar battery has its perks, specifically when it comes to storing the usable capacity of renewable energy.
This leads to cheaper electricity prices, allows users to avoid power cuts, save money, and help the environment by reducing their carbon footprint.
However, when buying solar array batteries, you must never forget the reasons why when pondering how much do solar batteries cost. These include:
Once you get a hold of the answers on how much do solar batteries cost, along with the considerations for choosing, you can get the most out of your solar array battery for as low as £2,000 up to £7,500 or higher.
