Solar power enthusiasts are anxiously waiting for affordable solar power storage solutions to enter the market. With buyback rates pretty much non-existent for solar power being exported to the grid, solar power customers want to keep it stored for themselves, and rightly so.
We keep hearing about the Tesla Powerwall; positive reviews are pouring in from around the world, yet we still don't know when it will officially arrive in New Zealand. But Panasonics residential storage battery system is here, and it's pretty good.
The unit measures 1380 high, 966mm wide and 279 mm depth and weighs in at 84kg. The batteries units have a capacity of 8kW, with an output of 2kW. Therefore, once it is fully charged it could deliver 2kW to the home for 4 hours.
Panasonic's demand response software allows owners to customize different charge and discharge programs. For example, the battery could be drawing in power from the grid when the power prices are cheap. Also, the battery can be programed to export power to the grid and sold to the utilities. Homeowners would be able to choose the best time of the day to export to the utilities, when the utiltiies set their highest buy back rate.
The Demand response software allows utility companies to remotely distribute charge and discharge programs for the batteries operations. I imagine that the homeowner could hand over this control to the utilities if they provided a solid incentive.
The Panasonic residential storage battery will be in competition with the likes of the Tesla Powerwall, Enphase's AC Battery and Solax Power's lithium batteries. Panasonic has been supplying Tesla with battery cells for their electric vehicles, so its intriguing that the two companies will now be competing along side each other in the solar storage industry.
Solarcity New Zealand will be selling the Panasonic Residential storage battery as a part of their solarZero+ package.