Top 5 Benefits of Energy Storage for Businesses
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Energy storage is a great option for commercial properties looking to cut energy costs and improve reliability. With storage prices decreasing in recent years, state and federal incentives to install storage, and increasingly complex–and pricey!–electricity rate schedules for businesses, there''s never been a better time to install solar and storage at your business. To help you decide whether storage is right for your organization, here''s a rundown of how storage works and the primary reasons that businesses are installing storage.
The primary benefit of energy storage is resiliency: making sure your lights stay on even if the grid goes down.
Storage also provides financial benefits in certain parts of the country, especially if you have demand charges or time-varying rates.
There are a number of storage incentives that can defray the cost of installing storage at your business.
Energy storage systems provide a very straightforward service: they store electricity for use at a later point in time. When paired with a solar panel system, an energy storage system will store any excess electricity produced by your solar panels for you to use after the sun goes down or when it''s cloudy.
There are a number of different technologies that provide energy storage, but the most commonly installed both at the residential and commercial levels are lithium-ion batteries. There are two primary types of lithium-ion battery technologies available on the market today–lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP)–which operate exactly the same way but differ across a number of variables: physical size, cycle life, materials used, pricing, and safety certifications.
Energy storage systems seamlessly integrate into your business''s electrical system, automatically kicking in when the grid goes down to ensure your operations don''t miss a beat.
There are two key benefits that energy storage provides. First and foremost, most homes and businesses install storage for the resiliency benefit: backup power in the event of a grid outage. But for many commercial applications, energy storage can provide much greater financial benefits than it can to homeowners, especially if your business is on a complex utility rate with either demand charges or a time-varying price for electricity.
Seventy percent of solar shoppers who request storage quotes on EnergySage say they are interested in storage for emergency backup power. For commercial properties, resilience takes a number of different forms: it could mean keeping refrigerators and freezers cool in the event of an outage, allowing a gate to open into a storage facility, or keeping the lights on in a restaurant while the rest of the block is out.
All resilience really means is just emergency power in the event of a grid outage event. Energy storage allows part or all of your business to run even when the grid is down. It''s not quite "off-grid," but it does mean you can operate without the grid when you have to.
If you operate in an area where you experience frequent outage events, energy storage can help mitigate the impact of those outages.
There are a few key ways that storage can provide financial benefits to businesses: demand charge mitigation, price arbitration on time-varying rates, and incentives.
The biggest financial benefits from storage come if you have demand charges on your utility rate. While electricity rates historically have focused on a volumetric charge where you pay a certain rate per kilowatt-hour of (kWh) electricity that you consume per month, demand charges are based on the maximum amount of power required over a single hour (or fifteen-minute period) in a given month.
Because your demand charge is set based on your maximum hourly power requirement, there is less incentive to reduce your overall usage throughout the month but rather to adjust how much electricity you require at once. If you''re on a demand charge electric rate, the only way to decrease your electric bill is to use less power all at once.
This is where storage comes into play – while solar can reduce the amount of electricity you use in a given month, batteries can help reduce your peak demand in a month. Since demand charges are often $15 per kilowatt (kW) of demand or more per month, and given many businesses use dozens of KWs of demand per month, decreasing your demand is a great way to reduce your monthly electricity spending.
Similarly to how some utilities have transitioned to demand charges, others have transitioned to time-varying rates. A time-varying rate–i.e., a time of-use rate–is an electricity rate where you pay more for electricity you use at certain times of day or during certain times of the year than others. In places like California, the rate can be higher in the evening, meaning you''ll pay more for electricity after the sun goes down.
With energy storage, you can store electricity produced during the day from your solar panels when electricity rates are low to use later in the evening when rates increase, allowing you to, in essence, arbitrage the rate you pay for electricity throughout the day.
When batteries are paired with solar, they''re eligible for a number of different incentives at the federal level, including the investment tax credit and bonus depreciation or the modified accelerated cost recovery system. Certain states and utilities also offer additional incentives for storage, like through the Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) in California.
Whether you''re interested in solar-plus-storage or solar on its own for your business, EnergySage can help. We take a consultative approach to helping businesses explore their solar options, walking through your goals for the project, gathering the information needed to generate a quote, and providing a free solar feasibility report for your organization. Sign up for EnergySage to get started today!
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Transfer power seamlessly
From reducing peak demand charges to integrating renewables, energy storage systems offer benefits for businesses of all sizes, from mom and pops to international corporations.
Today businesses face increasing pressure to reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and ensure they have a reliable power supply. Energy storage can help smart businesses achieve all of this. Below we''ll discuss why businesses should consider energy storage, explore available and upcoming technologies, as well as the benefits of, and future of energy storage.
Energy storage, simply put, means capturing and storing energy for later use. Businesses can use an energy storage system to store excess energy produced by a renewable energy system, or to even buy electricity off the grid and store it when demand is low and prices are low. Then the business can use it or even sell it back to the grid when demand and prices are high, thereby optimizing energy storage system usage to reduce utility expenses.
Energy storage systems for businesses are most commonly batteries. But there are other forms of energy storage. They include flywheels, compressed air storage, and pumped hydro storage. Battery storage is the most flexible because of its versatility, portability, scalability, and continually declining costs.
In certain markets businesses can benefit from peak demand shaving and time-of-use pricing when they use energy storage. They can reduce their electricity costs by storing energy during off-peak hours when rates are cheaper and using stored energy during peak demand periods when grid electric prices are higher. This helps them avoid peak use demand charges, which are sometimes higher for those businesses that use more energy.
About Energy storage for business
As the photovoltaic (PV) industry continues to evolve, advancements in Energy storage for business have become critical to optimizing the utilization of renewable energy sources. From innovative battery technologies to intelligent energy management systems, these solutions are transforming the way we store and distribute solar-generated electricity.
When you're looking for the latest and most efficient Energy storage for business for your PV project, our website offers a comprehensive selection of cutting-edge products designed to meet your specific requirements. Whether you're a renewable energy developer, utility company, or commercial enterprise looking to reduce your carbon footprint, we have the solutions to help you harness the full potential of solar energy.
By interacting with our online customer service, you'll gain a deep understanding of the various Energy storage for business featured in our extensive catalog, such as high-efficiency storage batteries and intelligent energy management systems, and how they work together to provide a stable and reliable power supply for your PV projects.
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