BATTERIES are more commonly used in households either for electric vehicles or with solar power installations.

A residential battery can store electricity when there is excess solar power produced, or from the grid during 2-5am, to then provide power in the home when needed or send it back to the grid at peak times. 

You could potentially use an electric car’s battery to do this too, by using “Vehicle to Home” technology, but only by choosing a model with “bi-directional charging” and fitting a smart charger with bi-directional charging.

These aren’t commonly available yet, but in the future more cars are likely to have this as standard, which makes sense: homes use between 8-10kWh per day and an average car battery can hold 50kWh! 

Household batteries could really help even out electricity demand between different times of day, which will reduce the need for new power plants or upgrades to the existing grid, helping to reduce the overall cost of electricity.

Spreading out the storage between the existing infrastructure of homes and commercial units would reduce the need for huge battery storage plants too, which have safety and environmental concerns.

People are being encouraged to get a battery with tariffs making it easier to see a return on the investment. 

The Octopus Flux tariff costs 17.05p/kWh to fill up a battery from the grid between 2-5am, and 28.79p/kWh to sell it back between 4-7pm!

Customers have to be on the ball though: if you don’t save enough electric for yourself to cook your dinner, it will cost a whopping 39.79p/kWh at peak times!

The system will have the most benefit in the summer if the battery is filled by solar panels during the sunniest times of day, reducing the risk of overload on the grid, and exported as the light fades during peak user times.

The benefits are clear, but considering the environmental cost and ethical issues around acquiring minerals needed for batteries, maybe we should simply try to reduce our overall electricity consumption.