The solar energy has become more popular and the use of solar system is increasing every next day, for obvious reasons. Your home can be powered by solar energy in an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way. one of the most important considerations is how many batteries you’ll need to power it. This article will help you how to choose batteries and how many batteries do you need for a 2kw solar system.
The number of batteries required for a 2kw solar panel system is vary depending on the amount of required energy and for how many hours and days you want to store for backup.
In this article, I will fully guide you about the types of types of batteries, and a budget friendly set up for 2kw solar panel system.
What Are the Types of Batteries for Solar Panel System?
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Choosing the right battery for you solar panel system is one of the essential options to be considered. Understanding the different types of batteries and their performance can help you to choose the right battery that fulfill your energy needs.
Additionally there are four types of batteries in the market each with a different features and different price tag. Following are the different bettery types.
- Lead-acid batteries.
The most commenly used battery type for solar installation. Lead-acid batteries are budget -friendly and provide reliable storage to store solar generated electricity.
- Lithium-ion batteries.
Compared to lead-acid batteries the lithium-ion batteries have high energy density and also proved that has a longer lifespan. But they are more expensive but the investment pays off in the long run.
- Nickel-cadmium batteries.
were once a popular choice, but their efficiency is lower than other battery types. They are durable and can withstand extreme temperatures, but their use is being phased out.
- Lastly, flow batteries.
use a liquid electrolyte to store energy, which allows for greater flexibility in the size and capacity of the battery. They are often used in large-scale solar systems.
These are the batteries that are being used for solar panel system. Now it depends on you which one you preffer for your solar panel system installation.
How many Batteries Do I Need For 2kw Solar Panel System?
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to calculate the number of batteries needed for a 2kW solar system.
You can integrate this calculation for 3kw, 4kw and so on. So let’s move to words the first step.
1. Determine your energy needs
2. Calculate your energy consumption
3. Determine the battery capacity
4. Choose the battery type
Calculation of the Number of Batteries Needed for a 2kW Solar System
Additionally, there are steps needed to follow in order to figure out the number of batteries needed for a 2kw solar panel system. We can figure out it by simple mathematic calculation and assumption. The vary first thing that we should keep in mind is the amount of energy we needed to run our home appliances.
The second important thing is how long we want to have energy backup with-out receiving energy from the solar panels. Furthermore, we also should determine that how many hours of sunlight receives our solar system.
Once we find out this factors than we easily can calculate how many batteries do we need for a 2kw solar panel system?
So let’s move through following steps to find out the number of batteries we exactly need.
- Determining energy needs.
Our first assumption for this matter is to determine the energy needs. We can determine it following two simple methods. Review your electricity bill or calculate your daily energy consumption.
To calculate your energy consumption, you can multiply the average number of kilowatt-hours (kWh) per day by the number of days in the month. For example, if your average daily consumption is 20 kWh, and there are 30 days in the month, your monthly consumption would be 600 kWh.
- Battery capacity
The battery capacity you need will depend on how much backup power you require. A good rule of thumb is to have enough battery capacity to last for at least 2-3 days without any solar input. For a 2kW solar system.
The following formula is used to calculate the capacity of a battery.
For instance, if we want to calculate a 12-volt battery with a capacity of 200Ah, the battery capacity can be calculated as follows:
Battery Capacity = 12 volts x 200Ah Battery Capacity = 2400watt-hours (Wh)
- We assume that daily energy consumption = 20kw
- we want to have backup for the next = 3 days
20 kWh/day x 3 days = 60 kWh
Our next step is to determine the energy generates the solar panel system. It can be easily done by multiplying 2kw with the total peak sun hours daily the solar panels system receives. For instance, if the solar panels receives a total of 5 hours of sunlight than the calculation would be as follow.
2 kW x 5 hours = 10 kWh/day
- Calculate the total energy needed from the batteries.
60 kWh – 10 kWh/day x 3 days = 30 kWh
Since we need to store 30 kWh of energy for backup than we should choose batteries with capacity of 30 kWh. However, to avoid deep cycling of the batteries, it’s recommended to choose batteries with a capacity that’s 20-30% higher than the total energy needed. In this case, we’ll assume a 25% safety margin, so the required battery capacity would be:
30 kWh / 0.75 = 40 kWh
Now that all the required data is in our hand we can calculate the numbers of needed batteries. So determine the number of batteries needed, we need to divide the total required battery capacity by the capacity of each battery. For example, if we choose 12V batteries with a capacity of 200Ah each, the calculation would be.
40,000 Wh / (12V x 200Ah) = 16.67 batteries
For a 2kW solar panel system with a daily use of 20 kWh and 5 peak sun hours, we would therefore require 17 batteries with a capacity of 200ah apiece to offer three days of backup.
