I'm in the UK on an agile tariff and I'm not quite so sure - it depends on a number of things. Sure my batteries were bought primarily to support my solar panels. but I've been making quite a lot of money this winter.
- There are times when it is windy and there is low demand, when prices actually go negative - fill your batteries and make money
- The differential between lowest and highest price per kWh is often 30p so filling up when it is 10p and using when it is 45p makes sense.
- The grid will sometimes pay you large amounts of money with a few hours notice that they will pay you a premium to discharge your batteries when demand is predicted to be extremely high - to avoid them cranking up coal power stations. In November and December I made £90 just from this - and I only have 5Kwh batteries.
I haven't run the figures on payback times if the batteries were just for shifting and not solar - but they might just pay themselves back.
red@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
The math has been done multiple times. The batteries don’t pay themselves back, and also need to be replaced from time to time.
HeartyBeast@kbin.social 5 months ago
Sure. But the math depends on electricity tariffs. And those change and therefore, so does the maths. it sounds like tariffs are pretty extreme currently
psud@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Batteries on a plan like that, where they’re part of a large virtual battery, do pay for themselves within warranty
Solar batteries never do. To rationally buy a battery one needs to put high value on backup power