Stock the Energy with Solar battery

09 Oct, 2017
Solar Training , Products , Self-consumption

A solar battery is a useful addition to every solar installation. It enables you to store your solar installation's energy production for a short period of time in order to use it later (at night or in the event of a power outage). These batteries will slowly discharge and are specificelly designed for the use in solar installations. The best is to combine them with a solar regulator before connecting them to the solar panels. Solar regulators monitor the batteries' power level and increase their service life. The power level should never exceed 95% and go below 40%. You want a solar installation that is autonomous for longer? Then add batteries or increase capacity. If you own a solar installation for self-consumption that is not connected to the power grid at all, you must add an additional solar panel in order to produce more energy (to power more devices for instance).

The right solar equipment

Before choosing a type of solar battery or solar controller, you must determine the volume and intensity of your electricity consumption. It is recommended to choose a 12V battery for a system power of less than 800 Wp, 24 V for a power between 800 and 1,600 Wp and 48V above 1,600 WC. It is then necessary to determine the desired autonomy of your photovoltaic installation. You can start from an average autonomy base of 3 to 5 days to ensure your self-consumption in the case of a site isolated with solar panels. All you have to do is multiply the desired quantity in Wh by the number of days of autonomy you want and multiply the figure by two because solar batteries do not need to be discharged at less than 50% of their capacity to operate under optimal conditions on your photovoltaic panels. the lifetime of the batteries is expressed in cycles. Count between 7 and 15 years for a battery of 500 cycles. It is possible to change the solar controller or battery independently of the photovoltaic panel.

Installing your equipment according to your needs and solar panels

The batteries of your photovoltaic panels. The so-called parallel assembly of the batteries (terminal + on terminal +) allows you to cumulate the storage capacity of the energy from your solar panels. On the other hand, the serial assembly (+ on -) allows you to accumulate the voltage of all your solar batteries without increasing their storage capacity. These changes can be useful depending on your self-consumption strategies. However, it is recommended to use solar controllers in this case to avoid damaging your photovoltaic installation. For an insulated on-site photovoltaic installation, on a 300 Wh basis suitable for a single person, count: a 50Wp/12V photovoltaic panel, a 5A 12V-24V solar regulator, and a 38Ah-12V solar battery.