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Why A Solar Battery Is Better Than A Generator?
More than ever, homeowners are looking for solar battery storage solutions to protect themselves against blackouts. This is particularly true in California lately, where planned shutoffs by utilities to prevent forest fires have affected tens of thousands of people.
Traditionally, homeowners have looked to backup generators to protect themselves against grid outages. These days, however, modern technology has fundamentally transformed this market, and state-of-the-art solar batteries offer a far better alternative to home backup than generators do.
Here are ten reasons why:
1. A Solar Battery Is Quiet
In case you haven’t heard one before, here’s what a traditional backup generator sounds like:
Generators are horrifically noisy, and their incessant bother lasts as long as the outage persists, which can be multiple hours (if not days).
By contrast, solar batteries are completely silent. You wouldn’t be able to tell that your solar battery was powering your home if you were standing right next to it. Your family – and your neighbors! – will thank you for keeping the peace.
2. A Solar Battery Is Clean
Diesel generators emit nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and other hydrocarbons. Propane and natural gas generators emit dangerous emissions as well. We all know how dangerous it would be to lock yourself or your family in your garage with your car engine running, so the thought of generator emissions right next to your home should be similarly unappealing.
In fact, generator emissions can be so dangerous that carbon monoxide poisoning from using generators can kill more people than the natural disasters they’re designed to protect us from!
Solar batteries of course emit no emissions of any kind. They’re completely sealed and will have no negative impacts on your family’s health.
3. A Solar Battery Is Small
While some portable generators can be quite small, built-in generators – which more closely match the capabilities of home batteries – occupy a large footprint and can take up valuable space in your yard. If you install one of these generators, you’ll likely also need to pour a substantial concrete pad to house it.
Home batteries, meanwhile, are wall-mounted and do not require any such construction work. They only stand a few inches away from the wall and can sit comfortably alongside your solar equipment, garage shelving, etc.
4. A Solar Battery Is Instant-On
Even the best backup generators on the market take a few seconds to cycle up in the event of an outage. This delay can leave young children scared, make clocks and devices reset, and cause unnecessary stress. If you have a portable generator that needs to be hooked up manually, the outage can last minutes.
By contrast, solar batteries are instant-on. They can react to outages in a fraction of a second – so quickly that clocks often won’t even blink! In fact, Tesla ran into a problem with its Powerwall wherein the batteries kicked in so fast that homeowners didn’t even know that they had lost power. As a result, Tesla updated its mobile app to send a notification alerting homeowners to detected outages.
5. A Solar Battery Is Reliable
One of the biggest draws of electric vehicles is that they don’t require the expensive regular maintenance that internal combustion engines do. With EVs, oil changes are a thing of the past.
Similarly, solar batteries require far less maintenance than generators do. Typically, generators need to cycle at least once per month to make sure all the internal components are lubricated and operating properly. Most homeowners will also hire a technician to inspect the generator every year to make sure it’s in good working order. After all, the only thing worse than paying for a generator is having it fail to turn on when you need it the most!
Solar batteries, on the other hand, require no maintenance of any kind. Other than maybe an occasional surface cleaning with some 409, the solar battery will not require any maintenance throughout its entire service life. You can rest assured that it will always be ready to protect you and your family at a moment’s notice.
6. A Solar Battery Is Natural Disaster-Proof
After an earthquake, one of the first things the local utility company will do is shut off natural gas service to prevent and potential fires from ruptured gas lines. If you’re in an earthquake-prone area like California, this can completely negate the benefit of having a built-in gas generator, as its fuel supply will be shut off immediately. Of course, batteries do not experience this issue.
7. A Solar Battery Can Run Indefinitely
Most generators are limited in backup duration by the amount of fuel you have on hand. Once your supply of diesel or propane runs out, the generator will stop and leave you without power. (Admittedly, natural gas generators fed by an underground line typically don’t experience this issue, except for the previously mentioned instance of earthquakes. Diesel and propane generators do, however.)
By contrast, solar batteries paired with solar panels can run indefinitely. By setting your household consumption equal to your solar system’s daily output, your solar battery will continue to recharge itself, and you could theoretically run without grid power indefinitely.
8. A Solar Battery Saves You Money
A backup generator is only useful to you when you have a power outage. Even if we assume that you have three full days without power every year – a full 72 hours – that’s still less than 1% of the time. That means you’re spending thousands of dollars for a solution that provides extremely limited benefit from a long-term perspective.
Solar panel and battery systems, however, operate every single day of the year and will save you money the other 99% of the time you’re living your life by reducing – if not eliminating – your typical electric bill. Oh, and when you do lose power, they still have you covered.
9. A Solar Battery Enables Energy Independence
Most homeowners are attracted to the idea of being energy independent. Producing your own power while reducing dependence on the electric grid appeals to the American ideal of self-reliance. While generators leave you completely reliant on the electric grid for your power, the combination of solar and batteries allows you to produce, store, and use your own electricity, dramatically reducing your dependence on the local utility.
10. A Solar Battery Can Be Free
Generators are “dumb” devices that have no interoperability with the electric grid. As far as the electric utility is concerned, it makes no difference whether you have a generator or not.
Solar batteries, however, are smart devices capable of dispensing power instantaneously as needed. While that is helpful for homeowners today, tomorrow’s utility companies find that capability very intriguing as well. Vermont’s Green Mountain Power already pays homeowners to install backup batteries, and other utilities will surely follow suit. Combined with current incentives like tax credits and SGIP, batteries will become increasingly affordable for everyday homeowners.
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The advantages that solar batteries have over generators today are numerous. Homeowners will increasingly look to batteries rather than generators to meet their backup needs. And for the sake of public health and fighting climate change, that’s a very good thing indeed.
The most common batteries on the market today are the Tesla Powerwall, LG Chem, and Sonnen.
If you’re interested in getting more information on a solar battery backup system for your home, head over to the solar.com main page and schedule a complimentary call with one of our Energy Advisors. Our experts can answer all of your questions about solar batteries and help find the right solution for you!
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