Plug-in solar is now legal in California, and plug-in solar will be a large market.
But an even larger market is hidden in the plug-in solar language allowing one to sell a plug-in bidirectional battery to the roughly 2 million California homes that have rooftop solar but no battery.
No utility interconnection agreement. No interconnection fee. Just a battery that plugs into a standard socket.
It will cost around $1,000 and discharge through the expensive evening hours. Payback will be within two years.
It’s a shippable appliance worth billions.
For those interested in the specs:
3 kWh battery.
360 W maximum discharge into the house. Why the limit? It’s due to safety concerns and UL requirements.
Want more capacity? Plug in three of them. That gives you 9 kWh of storage and up to roughly 1,080 W of combined discharge, still below California’s 1,200 W aggregate limit.
The savings come from high time-of-use electricity rates from roughly 4 p.m. to midnight.
The battery charges during the day from rooftop solar. If clouds are forecast, it can instead charge from the grid during the cheap midnight-to-6 a.m. window.
This is not an off-grid system.
It is for the millions of grid-connected homes that already have solar but do not have a battery.
Don’t spend $10,000 installing a 10 kWh battery system.
Spend roughly $3,000 for 9 kWh of plug-in storage.
No utility approval.
No grid connection fee.
No electrician needed.
High ROI and set it and forget it ease.
I’m looking to buy a few myself when Zendure / EcoFlow / Hoymiles / Mango Power / Pila release their versions.