With rising energy prices and maturing home battery storage solutions promising financial and environmental freedom, is it time to plug in to solar battery storage? But how do they work and how can it help you along the EV journey that we've just launched with sonnenDrive?

Home battery storage has been generating a great deal of buzz among energy-conscious consumers and for good reason. It enables households to take full control of their household power with as much independence as possible from the grid and energy companies at a time when Australian residential electricity prices are among the highest in the world. 

The concept of home battery storage isn't new as some remote properties have long used battery storage to capture unused electricity for later use but the technology and associated regulatory settings have only in recent years matured to a point that it makes it hard to ignore for both economic and environmental reasons. 

Pairing a home battery storage solution with solar panels is commonly referred to as a hybrid system which means that the home uses power supplied by the solar panels first, with any excess to charge the battery. At times of high usage, or at night and on low-sunlight days, power is drawn from the battery as opposed to the grid. Some can also act as a battery backup, providing power to the home in the event of a grid outage. 

The home battery storage market is a crowded space but leading the charge is German battery maker sonnen who offer class leading battery technology and consumer friendly flexible plans that include receiving monthly cash incentives for contributing to the clean energy transition. 

How does sonnen stack up for battery storage?

So what separates sonnen from the competition and how can you use it to live a clean energy lifestyle both at home and on the road? 

The most common type of battery being installed in homes today is lithium-ion, however, different companies use different types of lithium-ion chemistry with the most common being lithium nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) which is used by the likes of Tesla and LG Chem. 

sonnen uses a different chemistry made up of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) that is cobalt-free which makes it not only safer to use and easier to recycle, but also lasts longer with more than double the amount of charge cycles. sonnen provides a 10 year warranty or 10,000 cycles with a guarantee of 80 percent or more capacity after a decade of use. We encourage readers to review the results published by trusted independent battery performance testing labs such as Canberra-based Lithium Ion Battery Test Centre to see how different home battery storage products fare over time. 

sonnen also uses a modular design for its home battery so you can start with a battery as small as 2.5kw/h and add more over time as the energy demands of your household grows. It's a refreshing departure from the one size fits all approach taken by other companies.

Normally, with a home solar battery product there is extra hardware required, such as an inverter, as a part of the installation process but with a sonnen battery, it comes as a complete system that connects directly to your existing solar panels without any extra bits and pieces in between. This means a cleaner installation, smaller footprint and a lower upfront cost. 

Select home solar battery products support the use of virtual power plants which enable households to connect their battery with others so that they can be called into action to help reduce demand for electricity or increase supply when the electricity grid is under pressure. In return, customers can receive an upfront discount on the cost of a battery, earn credit on their bill, or both depending on the provider and the plan. 

It's worth noting that this is on top of the solar feed-in tariff you get when you supply energy back to the grid so it can make for a sizable saving that could, over time, cover the upfront cost of buying a storage battery. 

sonnen, for example, calls its virtual power plant sonnenConnect and customers who opt for the plan can continue to receive their existing solar feed-in tariff with their existing energy retailer as well as earn up to $24 a month and a one off $100 signup bonus upon joining. 

Take your energy independence on the road with sonnenDrive

The best part is that you can use some of the excess solar stored on your battery by charging an electric vehicle and avoid the steep upfront cost and ongoing maintenance of owning an EV by subscribing to sonnenDrive. With prices starting as little as $319 a week, sonnen customers can effectively power both their home and car with clean energy and free themselves from the bowser as well as the grid. 

carbar customers are also welcome to subscribe to sonnenDrive and access our range of electric vehicles and enjoy all the same benefits they currently enjoy, such as, the ability to stop and swap and no cancellation fees. You also get access to the benefits of carbar's loyalty program.