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At 4 o’clock last Thursday, SolarEdge launched their home battery with an online event.
The next day, they held another launch for people who couldn’t make it to the first one. I attended both and paid 55% attention each time, so I want you to know I gave this article 110%.
The battery can be added to existing solar systems with compatible SolarEdge inverters. SolarEdge says they’ll have a special offer that will allow SolarEdge owners without an Energy Hub inverter to upgrade to one at a reduced price if they buy the battery. This will also apply if people have an existing Solar Hub inverter and want to get a larger capacity one when they have the battery installed.
Because it’s DC Coupled, there’s no internal battery inverter. This can be a big advantage in areas where battery inverter capacity counts towards the total solar inverter capacity permitted by the local DNSP (electricity network).
Here are some technical specs I pulled from its datasheet:
It says its “Peak Roundtrip Efficiency” is greater than 94.5%. I put a red line under the word “Peak” because it’s not the same as the actual roundtrip efficiency, which is around 93.3%.
It’s a 10 kilowatt-hour battery with 9.7 kilowatt-hours of usable storage. Most households average well under 10 kilowatt-hours consumption at night so, provided the solar system is large enough to regularly fully charge the battery, for a typical household it can potentially eliminate most grid electricity consumption.
Like most home battery systems with around 10 or more kilowatt-hours of storage, the SolarEdge Home Battery can provide a continuous 5 kilowatts of power. While this is enough to meet usual household needs, it’s not difficult to draw more than 5 kilowatts depending on what appliances are used. If your goal is to minimize grid electricity consumption it’s best to use high power draw devices such as electric hot water systems, clothes dryers, and pool pumps during the day when the solar system can directly contribute power.
If 9.7 kilowatt-hours of energy storage isn’t enough, extra batteries can be installed. A Combiner Box will be required, which is an extra expense, and each one will allow up to three batteries to be connected to an inverter. If you’d rather use LG Chem batteries, the Combiner Box can be used with them.
I don’t have any information on the cost of the Combiner Box.
Round trip efficiency is how much energy gets lost between charging and discharging the battery. SolarEdge says for their battery it’s 93.3%. That’s high for a home battery system and is possible because it is DC coupled. The Tesla Powerwall 2 is AC coupled, which gives it the advantage of working with any solar inverter, but it’s only around 88% efficient.
High efficiency is definitely good, but the most important thing for maximizing energy produced is to install as large a solar system as possible. A home will be much better off with one extra solar panel than an extra 5 percentage points of battery roundtrip efficiency.
Backup power requires a SolarEdge Energy Hub single phase inverter and a Backup Box. The Backup Box is an additional expense.
The battery can be used without backup with the SolarEdge HD-Wave Genesis and HD-Wave EV single-phase inverters.
SolarEdge says it should also be possible to install their Home Battery with a SolarEdge 3φ (three-phase) Residential Inverter by the end of the year.
The battery’s operating temperature is from -10 to 50ºC. This is a good range for Australia because — at the moment — most towns and cities don’t go over 50ºC even in heatwaves.
But while this temperature range is good, there are there are places that are simply too hot for the SolarEdge battery. Its warranty will be void if installed where the ambient temperature1 exceeds 40 degrees for 5% or more of the warranty period. That’s around 18 days a year. This means you can’t install it Marble Bar in the shade or in a hot tin shed pretty much anywhere. At the moment, Alice Springs should be okay, but note the whole of Australia is getting hotter.
The warranty will also be void if the ambient temperature is under 0 degrees for 5% or more of the warranty period, but outside of the Snowy mountains, this isn’t likely to be a problem in Australia.
Unlike most battery systems, it can be stored for up to a year before use. Its temperature has to be below 30ºC for nine of those months, but being stored between 30 and 60 degrees for 3 months is okay. This makes stock management a lot easier for installers.
The battery has no active cooling system and relies on natural convection. This just means natural air movement keeps it cool. Because there’s no active cooling, there’s no fan to make noise. SolarEdge says at one metre its noise emission is under 25 decibels. That’s whisper quiet.
Note that cabling and the backup box will take up additional space. This is often left out of promotional material that frequently shows batteries installed without the stuff that actually lets it work or, worse, shows it floating in space with “god rays” coming off it:
The battery is IP55 rated. This means it is protected from dust and water, allowing it to be installed outside:
While it can be installed outside, SolarEdge makes it very clear it should be installed out of direct sunlight whenever possible. This is because heat is bad for batteries.
The battery is normally wall-mounted, but can be ground-mounted. It comes with a wall mount, but ground installation will require the purchase of a separate floor mount:
All communication links can be wireless, which can make installation easier. But because sending electricity through the air is both scary and dangerous, electrical cabling will still be required.
To allow for adequate cooling, the SolarEdge Home Battery requires a minimum of 20 cm clearance all around. This includes underneath when wall mounted. In addition to this, in Australia battery installations now require 60 cm clearance to the sides and 90 cm above3 and not be located inside “habitable” areas of a home.
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