If you would like to expand your household with a balcony power plant with storage, carefully weigh up the profitability of this measure.
Expanding a balcony power plant with storage: Good idea?
The main problem with this idea is that the price of storage is very high and it has a limited lifespan.
- Balcony power stations usually have a peak output of 600 watts of feed-in power. This means that you can run quite a lot of household power, apart from very powerful appliances such as the stove or kettle.
- However, appliances that run in the background, such as the refrigerator or freezer, can be powered by this private power plant during the day.
- However, since people are usually not at home during the day, the energy available at that time is only used for continuous consumption. Any excess energy is fed into the public power grid without any additional compensation. This way, you support the environment, but you personally gain nothing from it.
- This is where the storage comes into play, storing the energy generated during the day until you can use it in the evening. Unfortunately, these storage units are very expensive, costing around 2,000 euros, depending on the size of the storage unit.
- Since the system, with an output of up to 600 watts, which is rarely achieved, produces far less energy than a real photovoltaic system on the roof, a storage system is most likely to be profitable for small households.
- For larger households, however, the energy generated does not lead to significantly greater independence from your electricity provider if you have a storage facility. For this reason, the payback period takes several decades, depending on the total energy consumption.
- With a storage system, you can use almost all of the energy you generate yourself, but the purchase of the storage system will only pay for itself after a long time.
Advantages of a balcony power plant with storage
Despite the disadvantages, there are of course also advantages that justify purchasing one.
- If you don't own your own home but live in a rented apartment, installing a proper PV system on the roof is obviously not possible. In this case, however, a balcony power plant can certainly take the burden off you.
- Especially in times of constantly and rapidly rising electricity costs, the purchase of a balcony power plant including storage pays for itself ever more quickly. If you save more and more energy, the level of self-sufficiency also increases.
- Since balcony power plants are usually located in highly visible locations, the private use of photovoltaics may be an incentive for more people.
- With a storage system, you use less potentially climate-damaging electricity, which definitely benefits the climate.