Panasonic Evervolt House Battery Overview: A Modular and Highly effective Strategy

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Panasonic Evervolt House Battery

Like

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  Modular design
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  Appropriate with new and current photo voltaic panel programs
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  May be put in with out photo voltaic panels
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  Good guarantee
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  Strong efficiency and effectivity

Don’t love

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  Decrease depth of discharge
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  Customer support issues

Putting in a solar battery along with your solar panels can assist you keep things running when the power goes out. However discovering the best photo voltaic battery to your residence could be difficult. Should you’re searching for energy and adaptability, Panasonic’s new residence battery is perhaps price trying into.

The Evervolt Home Battery was announced again in June and is ready to launch later this 12 months. The Evervolt system combines a modular battery design with a robust hybrid inverter. Power wants fluctuate from home to accommodate, making discovering the best battery to your particular wants a problem. Probably the greatest issues the Evervolt has going for it’s flexibility for a wide range of vitality wants and makes use of. 

“Everyone’s wants are completely different. A few of the homes are massive, some are small. Some need extra energy for air-con or working different heavier hundreds. So we’ve got flexibility for no matter they’ll get or need, and cargo administration capability,” Mukesh Sethi, director of photo voltaic and vitality storage at Panasonic, advised CNET.

We didn’t conduct any hands-on testing for this overview. Solar batteries are a part of a fancy residence vitality system that varies between properties. As an alternative, this overview is predicated on publicly accessible info on-line from Panasonic and an interview with Sethi to get essentially the most up-to-date info doable. 

Here is what it’s best to know concerning the Panasonic Evervolt House Battery. 

What do you get with the Panasonic Evervolt House Battery?

The Evervolt House Battery provides a modular design, making capability choice and upgrades simpler. Smaller battery modules additionally are inclined to make for a better set up course of. You will additionally get a hybrid inverter with a strong 7.6 kilowatts of steady backup energy. However the actual great thing about the hybrid inverter lies within the set up choices it provides you. 

With a hybrid inverter, your battery can both be AC-coupled or DC-coupled, that means it is suitable with a brand new photo voltaic panel system or a photo voltaic system that you have already got put in on your house. Don’t desire photo voltaic panels? That is advantageous. The Evervolt House Battery can be put in as a standalone vitality storage system with out photo voltaic. 

Listed here are the Panasonic Evervolt Home Battery’s specs at a look.

System parts

There are 4 major parts that make up the Evervolt ecosystem:

• Battery cupboard 
• Battery modules
• Hybrid inverter
• Evervolt SmartBox

It could sound like so much, however you may solely have two containers on the wall: the precise battery enclosure and the Evervolt SmartBox. The battery cupboard is a big enclosure that homes the battery modules, that are small lithium-ion batteries that may be added or faraway from the battery cupboard to extend or lower storage capability. As an alternative of 1 big battery, you’ve got just a few small batteries that join collectively to incrementally enhance storage capability. 

The Evervolt comes with a hybrid inverter, that means the system could be AC- or DC-coupled. A DC-coupled system offers you higher efficiency and effectivity. This setup works finest in case you’re putting in photo voltaic and storage on the similar time. You additionally will not have to purchase a separate photo voltaic inverter, which generally prices round $2,000 or extra.

Anyone who’s getting photo voltaic and storage on the similar time can utterly keep away from the PV inverter and save some huge cash. One inverter does the whole lot, Sethi mentioned

If you have already got photo voltaic put in, you possibly can nonetheless set up the Evervolt. You will simply be going with an AC-coupled system as a substitute of DC. Your battery’s efficiency will not be pretty much as good as a DC-coupled setup, however the lack of effectivity shouldn’t be a complete dealbreaker. 

When you’ve got a number of Evervolt batteries, you possibly can even have an AC-coupled system and a DC-coupled system on the similar time. 

There’s additionally the Evervolt SmartBox. That is primarily an vitality administration machine that gives a centralized place for all of your wiring, connecting the battery, photo voltaic panel system and grid energy multi functional field. You’ll control up to six electrical loads. The SmartBox additionally incorporates the switch change, which flips your system to backup energy when it detects a grid outage. 

Capability and modularity

The Evervolt House Battery is a modular system made up of some small 4.5 kWh battery modules which might be positioned into the battery cupboard. Capability could be elevated by including battery modules. Modular battery designs make it straightforward to measurement your system to one thing that is “good” to your vitality wants. 

The Evervolt’s battery cupboard holds two, three or 4 battery modules. Every battery module has a usable capability of 4.5 kWh. This offers you three sizes to select from: 9 kWh, 13.5 kWh or 18 kWh. If 18 kWh is not sufficient vitality storage, you possibly can set up as much as 4 further items for a complete of 72 kWh of cupboard space.

Efficiency and effectivity 

The efficiency specs you get with the Evervolt are fairly strong. What stands out most concerning the Evervolt’s efficiency is its glorious energy capabilities. The Evervolt can output 7.6 kW of steady backup energy at any capability measurement when put in with photo voltaic. If put in with out photo voltaic, you may get much less backup energy with the 9 kWh Evervolt mannequin (5.5 kW).

Battery capability generally is a little bit difficult. You sometimes aren’t ready to make use of all of a battery’s capability with out shortening the lifespan of the battery. The quantity of your battery’s capability that you should use safely known as its depth of discharge, and lots of we have seen have figures of a minimum of 95%. The Evervolt’s depth of discharge is a bit of bit decrease, at 90%, that means you will not be capable of use as a lot of its whole capability. The figures we have used listed below are the battery’s usable capability, that means we aren’t factoring in that 10% of unusable capability.

We additionally want to speak about round-trip effectivity, which is a measure of how a lot vitality makes it into battery storage with out getting misplaced. How environment friendly this battery goes to be relies on the coupling setup you’ve got. DC-coupled programs are usually extra environment friendly, and the Evervolt is not any exception. When DC-coupled the Evervolt has a round-trip effectivity of 94% — fairly good. As an AC-coupled system, the Evervolt’s effectivity is far decrease (89%), which is according to the everyday round-trip effectivity of residence batteries (about 90%).

Guarantee

Batteries are sometimes coated below a 10-year guarantee, with a cycle lifetime of 6,000 cycles and an end-of-warranty capability assure of 70%. The Evervolt’s guarantee is a bit higher than the common. It comes with a 12-year guarantee, however its cycle life and capability assure is the common described above, in response to the spec sheet. That is not essentially a nasty factor although. Every Evervolt battery module has an approximate vitality throughput of 13 MWh, which is increased than different particular person battery modules we have seen. 

The Evervolt’s 12-year guarantee applies to the whole system too, so the SmartBox and inverter are coated too. Sethi mentioned labor is included within the guarantee as properly, which is uncommon relating to battery warranties.

Years coated: The size of time your battery is roofed below guarantee. 

Cycle life and throughput: Most battery warranties cowl a certain amount of battery cycles. That is additionally generally known as a battery’s cycle life. A battery cycle is the act of draining and recharging your battery. Most often, as soon as your battery hits the cycle depend listed within the guarantee, your guarantee expires. Alternatively, you may additionally come throughout throughput. That is the anticipated quantity of vitality {that a} battery will ship throughout its lifetime, set by the producer. It is sometimes measured in megawatt hours.

Finish-of-warranty capability assure: Battery capability retention decreases the extra you utilize it. A capability assure is the producer’s assure that your battery will retain as much as a sure proportion of its unique capability by the point your guarantee ends. 

Buyer assist

The Evervolt House Battery hasn’t been launched to the general public as of proper now. However buyer critiques concerning assist for Panasonic’s family merchandise might be an indicator of what sort of service you would possibly expertise sooner or later. 

Clients on Panasonic’s Better Business Bureau and Trustpilot pages have been unhappy with the standard of Panasonic’s merchandise and buyer assist. Some prospects attempting to get assist from Panasonic’s assist quantity or stay chat could not appear to get a response, whereas different prospects submitted emails, however by no means obtained a response.

“Panasonic is dedicated to serving to extra owners make the change to dependable clear vitality and residential vitality storage,” Sethi mentioned in a press release. “As one among America’s most trusted manufacturers, Panasonic addresses every photo voltaic buyer’s service inquiry individually and stands behind our residence batteries with a 12-year guarantee when put in by a certified installer.”

How a lot does the Panasonic Evervolt House Battery price?

The Evervolt House Battery has not hit the market but, so pricing particulars are nonetheless unclear. However Panasonic advised us that the price of the Evervolt House Battery System is aggressive with comparable merchandise. 

With regards to battery pricing, you possibly can usually count on to pay someplace between $1,000 to $2,000 per kilowatt-hour of storage. You will possible additionally pay between $2,000 to $3,000 for the set up of the battery. 

To get essentially the most correct value estimate to your residence, you may want to talk with a Panasonic-certified installer in your space after the battery’s official launch. Or converse with a Panasonic consultant. You may also need to discover a number of battery choices from varied installers in your native space. 

Is the Panasonic Evervolt House Battery my best option?

Batteries aren’t a one-size-fits-all kind of product. One of the best battery to your house is one which meets your vitality wants and price range. If energy, modularity and an extended guarantee matter to you, then the Evervolt House Battery is a strong selection. The Evervolt additionally works with a wide range of setups. It is suitable with new and current photo voltaic programs, or you might set up it with out photo voltaic panels. 

However bear in mind, you’ve got extra choices than simply the Evervolt. There are a ton of different battery choices in the marketplace that is perhaps proper to your residence. And most installers are licensed to put in a number of battery manufacturers. Discover battery choices from a number of installers in your space earlier than finalizing your choice. We additionally advocate gathering a minimum of three quotes from installers in your space to get the most effective value doable.

How we evaluated the most effective photo voltaic batteries 

Every battery is completely different and is not going to be the best match for each residence. With out an on-site inspection, it is tough to find out which photo voltaic battery is the “finest” battery. Due to the complexity of solar panel systems, we aren’t capable of do any type of hands-on testing of any of the photo voltaic batteries we overview. Nevertheless, there are goal methods to judge and examine these batteries. Here is how we consider photo voltaic batteries.

First, we created classes to judge the battery’s effectivity, efficiency, capability and worth. We additionally gave every class its personal weight. Every class’s weight displays the significance we felt was related to the common shopper. Listed here are the classes and their weights:

• Battery modularity (stackability) – 20%
• Guarantee – 20%
• Spherical-trip effectivity – 15%
• Depth of discharge – 10%
• Energy output – 10%
• Value – 10%
• Buyer critiques – 10%
• Battery capability – 5%

We checked out greater than 15 of the most typical batteries in the marketplace and picked up the information for every class to check the numbers. Every battery was given a tier-style score (from 1 to five) for every class to see which metrics of every battery have been above common (amongst these on our listing), common or under common.

Steadily requested questions