Record breaking heat waves have been causing havoc worldwide even at our HQ in the Cotswolds, England.
When temperatures skyrocket, air conditioning at home or work are constantly on (or fans for us poor UK residents with no infrastructure or consideration for heat!). All the same it uses electricity, increasing your bills, and in some areas putting too much strain on the network causing black outs.
Power outages
For homeowners and businesses with a solar panel system and/or battery storage, the fear of power outages are not much of a concern and bills are kept lower than the neighbour without!
The basics of the grid are that when everyone wants power, especially if not expected, the grid has to make that power at the exact time because utility scale storage is still new. Therefore if they can’t generate enough power to balance supply and demand at that exact time we experience an outage.
It is very important that an energy company keeps their energy generation very close to their energy demand, therefore they can’t make more just in case. If they did it may cause the grid to have other longer-term issues.
Home batteries
Home batteries provide back-up in a blackout or outage. How this works hugely depends on your Country of residence but it is often supplied by an essential circuit which would keep the fridge freezer on for example. How much you attach to that circuit would depend on what you deemed essential and how long you expected the outage to be.
Using a battery allows you to store energy for later. You don’t need a solar array but this provides “free” energy to store. You could store from the grid in case of an outage or top up from the grid overnight ensuring your battery was at maximum capacity.
Protecting yourself against a power outage
Depending on its capacity, a fully charged home battery by itself may be able to provide your household with enough energy for about a day or two in the case of a power outage. However this is dependent on how conservative you are with your energy consumption, as well as the capacity of your battery. At Catch Energy we can provide batteries from 2kWh upwards to create larger energy stores for those wanting to go “off grid” or provide full power for longer periods of time. Each battery solution is unique to the customer.
If you are connected to solar you can ensure that your solar panels keep charging your batteries during power outages. The control and flexibility during an outage is a key benefit of solar + storage. If you just have solar you will have no power overnight during an outage if you are off-grid. If you are on-grid your solar panels will be switched off too with the grid for safety.
If you want to make sure that you will always have access to electricity, the most effective way to do this is by installing a solar panel system and home battery. This will ensure you are unrestricted in your generation and storage abilities. Get started today by contacting Catch Energy about your home, small or large business and lets get prepared for lower energy bills and no more unfrozen ice cream in a power cut!
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