Our Top 5 Domestic Battery Uses

1. Keeping the lights on during power cuts

Domestic battery and control systems can help to give you protection against power outages. For power cuts a battery system would allow you to keep the light, fridge, internet, tv and a whole other raft of appliance still going for a good while after the mains electricity has gone off. Depending on the size of the battery installed depends on how long you can keep these critical appliances working for. You can program the batteries to store a minimum amount to always make sure you are covered.

These mains backup battery systems aim to act as an ‘uninterruptible’ backup and as such the appliances within the home will see a continuous flow of electricity as the battery system takes over.

2. Night time use of your free solar electricity to reduce waste

If you have a solar photovoltaic (PV) system installed you can use electricity your system has generated for free at night. What if you could use the free excess electricity created during the day? Batteries can do exactly that and store excess free electricity and make sure you are not wasting it by sending it back onto the mains grid.

3. Optimising time-based energy tariffs to save money

For some it may make sense to store low price electricity and use it when electricity rates are high during other parts of the day. It must be said this works particularly well on the Continent but less so in the UK, however the idea still stands. Why not store electricity when it’s cheap and then use the stored energy when you are on a higher tariff? There are a range of new smart variable energy tariffs coming onto the market which can help here.

4. Charging your electric car as cheaply as possible

If you have an electric vehicle it is likely it is sat at home for a large proportion of the day and night when not in use. This means that you don’t have to charge it straight away and could wait, in the summer, until there is an excess of free solar electricity or more generally, at night when your home battery has spare capacity and your home is ‘asleep’. Mobile apps and interfaces with home battery systems can help you to drive down the cost rather than just charging from the grid immediately once you get home.

5. Maximise solar panel returns and minimise imported electricity

The holy grail for some is to stop importing energy from the grid at all. For most of us mere mortals it is a pipe dream to do this entirely, but with a home battery system and solar PV panels you can buffer energy and power your home life much more effectively and reduce the net import of energy through the year. The key here is flexibility and by better control and the additional resource the battery gives you you can meet spikes in daily demand and stay off grid for longer. The more you can use the electricity generated by your solar panels, keep it on site and use it the more economical the solution and the faster the return is in your investment.

If you still have any questions about home battery storage, please don't hesitate to contact the Mesh team today.