The right battery capacity (also referred to as sizing) is of the utmost importance when finding a home battery to meet your household’s energy needs. But how do you know what size is right for your home? That’ll depend on your energy consumption and how you plan to use your battery.
“You want to have a battery that can provide the length of backup that you desire,” Josh Lutton, president of Certasun, a solar company serving Chicago and Milwaukee, told CNET.
Here’s what you need to know about your home battery’s capacity.
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What is a home battery?
A home battery isn’t like a small AAA battery that you might use to power your TV remote — it’s much bigger. Home batteries are essentially giant batteries that store large amounts of energy, capable of powering your home during an outage. The battery integrates with your home’s electrical system and can be charged with power from the grid or solar panels.
If you have solar panels, you’ll be able to stash away any excess energy your solar panels produce into the battery to be used later. You might use this stored energy to power your home with solar at night or to offset your energy use.
Certain utilities charge different rates for electricity used at specific times of the day, usually during hours when the demand for electricity is highest. These are called time of use rates. To avoid paying high electricity rates, you can use the stored energy from your battery to power your home during hours of high electricity demand. You can recharge your battery during parts of the day when energy rates are lower.
What is battery capacity?
Batteries are “sized” based on their energy storage capacity. Battery capacity is the amount of energy your battery can put away into storage to be used for later. The larger the capacity, the more energy you can stash away. It’s measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh), which is a measurement of energy used over a period of time. We’ll dive more into the specifics of that below.
How long will a 10-kWh battery power my house?
Home battery storage capacities are pretty varied, but the average home battery capacity is likely going to be somewhere between 10 kWh and 15 kWh.
