There is no “one size fits all” solution in battery storage. When designing a storage system, our final recommendation needs to take into account sizing (excess electricity from the PV system, on site usage) and functionality, in particular whether or not an emergency power supply is required and whether or not the PV needs to function in a power cut. These requirements inevitably impact budget.
For large commercial systems we need to take account of the desired balance between the participation in grid income generation opportunities and the need to time-shift peak electricity charges, as well as the requirement for emergency back-up.
Having said that, we have identified the technologies we believe to be “best in class” as follows:
Residential/Small Comercial
Battery technology: Tesla Powerwall 2, TPPL Lead Acid (Northstar) and LG Chem;
Inverter / charger technology: Tesla, SMA, SolarEdge & Victron;
“Plug and play” packaged systems combining battery and charger into one: Maslow (AC connected) and SolaX (DC connected). Note that the packaged systems use our favoured battery and inverter technologies.
Large Commercial – Containerised Systems
Tesla, Samsung-Sungrow SDI and Aquion are our favoured containerised systems, depending on application.
The pyramid above summarises our favoured technologies for residential and commercial installs. Click on the links in the above to read about each technology in more detail.
At the top in the “Residential / Single Phase Commercial” category are, Tesla Powerwall 2 and SolaX, depending on whether it is a new or existing PV system. Maslow is a packaged system containing a battery charger and battery. It is ideal for residential systems where the main focus is on maximising on site consumption.
Tesla Powerwall 2 can be AC coupled on its own or it is compatible with SolarEdge’s StorEdge for DC-coupled installations. It is possible for the system to be set up to provide an Emergency Back Up, and in some cases, for the PV panels to continue to work in a power cut.
For high end residential systems / commercial systems which require more than 16kWh of storageand a power output from 6kW to 250kW, as well as total functionality in a power cut, we recommend the Victron Hub 2 or Hub 4 System or the SMA Flexible Storage System with Aquion batteries, as well as Tesla Powerwall 2 which can provide up to 115 kWh of storage by combining units in parallel.
