Tracking The Falling Cost Of Small Solar-Plus-Storage

NREL study aims to fill gaps in residential energy storage cost benchmarking Andy Colthorpe, April 7, 2017 (Energy Storage News)

“…[Data from Q1 2016 on a 5.6kW PV array with a 3kW/6kWh lithium-ion battery and a 5kW/20kWh lithium battery with the same size PV array shows that] a DC-coupled ‘small battery’ system could cost US$27,703, while an AC-coupled could cost US$29,568 on a new installation where solar and battery were installed together…[R]etrofitting, which is more commonly associated with AC-coupled systems, to an existing PV system raises the installed price to US$32,786…[A] ‘large battery’, DC-coupled, could cost US$45,237 - significantly more than the ‘small battery’ systems. The AC-coupled version of that would be US$47,171. Part of the higher cost consists of need for more, and bigger, inverters [according to a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It assumes the systems] are used for PV optimisation purposes to boost self-consumption, including peak demand shifting and time-of-use shifting, but one obviously offers the more robust backup solution…” click here for more

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