Balcony power plant 800 watts with storage: Is a storage system worth it or not?
Conclusion: A balcony power plant with 600/800 watts and storage is not worth it, at least not in terms of costs.
What is a balcony power plant?
Balcony power plant is a type ofmini solar systeme that is characterized by its plug-and-play functionality. A balcony power plant complete set usually consists of cables, solar modules and an inverter. Due to the continuous increase in energy prices and people's growing desire to reduce dependence on energy suppliers, the balcony power plant is becoming increasingly popular due to its easy installation, uncomplicated registration and the avoidance of high installation costs.
The beautiful starting point of balcony power plant with storage
Since balcony power plant feeds electrical energy into the grid due to its Plug&Play function without being compensated for it, a new combination was created: balcony power plant with storage. The beautiful desire of this combination is to store excess energy that is not used immediately and use it during the night to take advantage of the electricity generated during the day.
Balcony power plant with storage - What advantages does it offer you?
- Independent of energy suppliers
- Reducing energy consumption
- Reduction of CO2 emissions
Balcony power plant 600 W with storage: How long does it take to amortize the costs?
In the current environment, cost is undoubtedly a crucial factor influencing our purchases. From an economic point of view, balcony power plants with storage are obviously not necessary.The “Solar Storage Systems” research group at the HTW Berlin University of Applied Sciences has developed a plug solar calculator.
Using this tool, we can calculate that, for example, with a balcony power plant with 600 W and storage, after deducting your own consumption, you can save an additional 67 kWh of electricity annually through the storage.
- Energy saving: 67KWH
- Grid purchase price for electricity: 40 cents per kWh with a 3 percent increase annually
- Acquisition costs for balcony power plant: 650 euros
- Acquisition costs for battery storage: 1.100 euros
Based on the above data, it can be calculated that a balcony power plant without storage can recoup the costs in approximately 5 years, while a balcony power plant with storage needs 10 years or longer to do so recover costs.
Balcony power plant with storage: lifespan of the individual components
Balcony power plant complete set usually includes an INVERTER with a 12-year warranty, while solar panels even offer a 25-year warranty. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the costs can be recovered over the life of the balcony power plant, and you can get returns of 5-20 years or more. However, adding storage can make it a fruitless investment. Let's take the currently popular Zend*** LiFePO4 storage devices as an example. They must be placed in a suitable environment and as the number of charging cycles increases, their performance decreases. To maintain performance for as long as possible, full charge and discharge cycles should be avoided as much as possible. All of this shows that storage requires a demanding working environment and careful use, which is far from the plug & play solution advocated by the balcony power plant.And there can be no guarantee that the costs of investing in LiFePO4 storage can be recovered.
Correct approach: photovoltaic system with storage
Due to the current political situation in Germany, purchasing an 800w balcony power plant with storage is not profitable. A photovoltaic system with storage is the best choice. According to the data from the photovoltaic system provider 'gruenes.haus' we can see the annual electricity production of various photovoltaic system models.
10kWp | 10,000 kWh |
8kWp | 8,000kWh |
6kWp | 6,000kWh |
5kWp | 5,000kWh |
Photovoltaic systems with storage can increase the degree of self-sufficiency of photovoltaics to around 80% and feed excess electricity into the grid in order to receive compensation. This is the ideal application situation for solar energy storage.
Summary: Regardless of how well other balcony power plant providers advertise the balcony power plant with storage, we recommend that you remain calm and not be influenced by the advertising. We recommend you start your green energy journey by purchasing a balcony power plant. Based on your own experience and understanding of domestic electricity consumption, you can then try out the balcony power plant with storage. With the changing government guidelines, the output of the balcony power plant could also continue to increase, and the balcony power plant with storage could become even more useful. Of course, if you don't take the investment costs into account and are driven by interest, you can always buy a balcony power plant with storage and begin your energy transition journey.