Benefits of Commercial Batteries

As electricity prices continue to rise, the unpredictability of energy bills can make it difficult for businesses to manage this spend. Whether the cost is large or small will depend on your industry and operational needs, but if you’re on the higher end use of the scale, electricity bills can quickly become a significant overhead.

Solar PV systems can help to alleviate the uncertainty of rising electricity bills and better equip your business in managing your consumption of electricity. The next step for many businesses who already have solar installed, is solar battery storage.

Solar battery storage has several benefits in commercial applications. Having battery storage allows your business to become more energy independent as you maximise your solar self-consumption and reduce the amount of electricity you need to purchase from the grid. On a larger scale, batteries can help balance short-term power fluctuations, manage peak demand and act as a backup to prevent or recover from power outages.

How does battery storage work?

As solar power is produced, it is either consumed by the sites’ occupier or it is sent back to the grid through a process called ‘net metering’ where the consumer will receive a credit on their next power bill.  

However, with the addition of battery storage, your unused solar power can instead be sent to a battery to be stored for later use when your solar system isn’t producing enough, or any energy. This power is readily available onsite for you to draw from when required.

Is commercial battery storage suitable for your business?

After performing an in-depth analysis of your energy consumption profile, your energy consultant will be able to determine whether battery storage is a viable option for your business. Depending on when and how your business uses energy, your energy consultant will suggest the best option.

Although in some situations a battery may not be feasible, it can be ideal for many businesses on certain electricity usage plans. If you’re charged high rates for peak demand periods, having battery storage can reduce or even eliminate these charges by using the stored energy to supply your business.

Battery storage can also be useful in circumstances where the business needs to consume large amounts of energy overnight. As solar is only produced during daylight hours, businesses who require to keep their facilities’ running throughout the evening will find their electricity bills are reduced through battery storage.

What are the Benefits:

Solar battery storage provides several financial and environmental benefits for businesses. Battery storage can produce the following benefits:

• Maximised solar self-consumption: storing energy in a battery allows your business to utilise more of the energy produced by your solar panels, rather than sending it back to the grid.
• Energy arbitrage: shifting to the stored energy in the battery when grid electricity is at its peak to save on energy costs.
• Lowering peak demand: reducing grid congestion by discharging when load is peaking for the entire electrical grid.
• Coverage during blackouts: battery storage can act as a form of back-up power during an outage.
• Using clean, renewable energy to power your business: solar power is 100% carbon-free and produces zero fossil fuels.

Case study: Bishop Transport

Infinite Energy installed a 20kW system supported by a 8kW sonnenBatterie with 16kWh battery storage capacity in May, 2018 for Bishop Transport. Bishop Transport are an established family run business, servicing the remote northern regions of WA. The main aspect of the business is the transportation of refrigerated goods to many of the smaller regional towns. Due to the refrigeration of products, they run several cool rooms which increases their overnight energy consumption.
Additionally, they load most of their refrigerated vehicles in the evening for overnight travel. Due to these factors, they were an ideal candidate to incorporate battery storage into their system in order to offset a percentage of their energy usage which couldn’t be offset by solar during daylight hours.

System details: (20kW)

61 x 327 E-series SunPower panels

1 x Fronius Symo 15.0-3-M inverter

1 x sonnen three phase 8kW / 16kWh battery storage

The following table shows the forecast savings/offset from the combined solar and battery system:

As seen above, Bishop Transport can offset an impressive 41% of their grid consumption through solar and battery storage, equating to electricity savings of $7,825 each year. Over the course of the battery’s warranted lifetime, this system will save the business an estimated $78, 250.

Commercial battery storage can be a significant investment for your business. If you would like to see how solar and battery storage could work for you, please contact us today.