IKEA UK starts to sell solar storage batteries

[HEXUS]

Instead of selling the electricity back to the grid you can save it for when darkness comes.

Read more.

[peterb]

Ive looked at these - the big saving is the background load at night - fridge, freezer (server! ) etc which in my case is between 200 and 300 watts and dull days when the battery can augment the solar output when cooking or running high load appliances.

The RoI is still quite long though - prices need to fall further.

[virtuo]

Using the linked calculator, I get a 270W panel (with batteries), installed cost of £7368 and 20 years savings of £8423, so netting a £52 saving a year. Don't think it's for me, yet.

[Ttaskmaster]

you can save it for when darkness comes.

Is that like how Winter is Coming?

[daddacool]

The RoI is still quite long though - prices need to fall further.

Once the RoI period is comfortably shorter than the warranty period, these sort of things will become more attractive. As it stands though, last time I looked the RoI period was far far in excess of the warranty.

[Moby-Dick]

I have a set of the orig. IKEA panels - though I am looking at the X-Power ( Nissan/Eaton ) battery kit , for me the benefits are twofold , not only storage of excess PV , but I'll charge up overnight on economy 7 and discharge it for the morning peak in power before the PV has got going.

[LSG501]

LOL... I've had people ringing me up trying to flog these for the last couple of years and seeing as I'm all about making house as 'tech friendly' as possible did the sums based on old solar readings etc. The outcome was these batteries just aren't really worth the cost in the UK.

The benefit of these during summer would be so minimal that your return from unused electric (assuming decent pay in tariff) would more than cover any electric usage costs and in our case pretty much covers winter use too.

When you actually need these, ie winter, there is considerably less 'spare' electric during the day, if any, especially considering there's less 'day' so you'd likely struggle to charge the battery up enough to make any major difference during peak or night usage.

For these to be remotely viable they basically need to come in at around a £1000, not the £3000 or so most are asking.

[excalibur1814]

If the entire kit was around £1500 I'd consider it. I'm not going to splash on something that could provide a reasonably priced second hand car. I wonder what it costs for these companies to make this stuff?

[Millennium]

I'm going to wait for Elon Musk's take on these. Prices still too high, return is too long. As people have said. Interested for my mum's house, I'm in a basement flat rented myself so I can't do anything with them at the moment

[chj]

With the RoI being so long is it likely a much more efficient solar panel/battery is going to come to market in that time?

[peterb]

With the RoI being so long is it likely a much more efficient solar panel/battery is going to come to market in that time?

Yes prices are likely to fall as battery technology/manufacturing processes/volume sales ramp up.

[SolarCoach]

IKEA seems to take away a piece of the ever expanding cake. This is great news, especially for people with electric cars and other outdoor electrical powered tools/vehicles. In my oppinion Tesla is the one to compete with and I'm curious whether IKEA will be able to grab a portion of their future market share.