5 Best Batteries for Solar Off-Grid

What to look for in a home solar battery?

Solar batteries come in mind-blowing varieties to suit the needs of users. When choosing a solar battery for off-grid living, you should focus on these features.

Power rating: This is given in kilowatts (kW) and relates to how much power the battery can provide at any given time. In the practical sense, this means how many appliances you can use at the same time. 

Storage capacity: This is also referred to as the battery size and is given in kilowatt-hours (kWh). This will tell you how much energy the battery can store and provide. You need to remember that low power consumption appliances will run longer on the same stored power.

Lifetime: There are three yardsticks used to measure this – operational years, throughput, and cycles. Expected years of operation are easy enough to understand. Throughput is the amount of energy the battery can handle in its lifetime. Cycles refer to the number of rounds of charges and discharge the battery can manage in its lifetime.

Battery chemistry: This refers to the primary chemical used in it to store energy. This is one of the most important factors to look for in a battery. This influences the size of the battery, the amount of energy it can hold, its performance and longevity, and its ability to be recycled. And, naturally, chemistry has a big say on its price as well.

Based on chemistry, there are 4 broad categories of batteries – 

• Flooded Lead Acid Batteries
• Absorbent Glass Mat (AGM) Batteries
• Gel Batteries
• Lithium-ion Batteries

Roundup efficiency: The battery stores DC electricity. This means the AC electricity needs to be converted to DC for storage and back to AC for use. Energy is lost during these conversion processes. The roundup efficiency of a battery is a measure of the energy available for use after this process.

Safety requirements: All batteries need to satisfy certain safety provisions to be certified for home installation.

You also need to take into account the cost of the battery, ease of installation, charging time, and manufacturer warranty. 

What is the best battery for off-grid use?

There is no simple answer to this question. It entirely depends on your requirements. You need to consider your energy demand, your solar installation, your limitations, and even your expectations to figure out the best solar battery for your needs. 

If you want to power a large home with energy-guzzling appliances, you may want a high-capacity battery that can handle large amounts of energy round the clock. On the other hand, if you have budgetary constraints or you want to limit your energy use for the sake of the environment, a smaller-sized battery with better integration may be a better choice. 

To figure out the best battery for solar installation, you need to filter the available choices by comparing the 6 basic battery features together with the 4 additional criteria mentioned above.

Let’s see how top battery brands stack against each other.