A personal experience.
Last night we had a power-cut. Not a little flicker, lights come back on power-cut, but a plunged into darkness power-cut where we would normally have rummaged around for candles and all huddled up in one room.
But not this time.
In May 2018, we had a 9.6kw battery installed to compliment the solar system on the house. Over the first year, we still exported energy to the grid so we extended the battery just before Christmas 2019 so it is now 14.4kw stored energy.
The battery we chose, has multiple depth of discharge settings which allows us to have a permanent reserve, hard wired into lights and the boiler, so in a power-cut, we are guaranteed a reserve of energy for essential circuits.
Some battery systems are so advanced in their technology that as the storm approached, the battery force charged from the grid to ensure a full battery when the power did go down.
So for us, at around 5:30pm when the power went off, we waited 3 seconds and then the boiler and lights came back on. So we had heat as the boiler only uses around 130w of electricity to run the timer/control and pumps and we had lights.
4G signal was good so we still had communication via the radio app on local radio to listen out for local information and that was bluetoothed to a small speak, pre charged.
We also have a small selection of portable solar generators that were already charged, one went to the annex for a light and radio.
So, for 2 hours or so, life went on pretty near normal until the power came back on.
One thing i did note though, was the room where we ‘lounge’ has 3 40w halogen bulbs in the light fitting. I’ll be changing them for 6w LED lights today.
There are many battery chargers/inverters on the market, each with their own features and benefits. There is no ‘one size fits all’ but there is a battery for virtually every situation we hear of.
And to remind you. We can fit a 4kw solar and massive battery today for less than we were selling a 4kw solar system 10 yrs ago.
You know where we are
Kevin
www.solar-power.co.uk/contact-us