Home batteries can make your solar roof a much better investment.

Home battery storage is moving from an exotic feature of the homes of the wealthy to a more mainstream option for any home with solar panels, incentivized by a new 30% federal tax credit. But If you think of batteries primarily as a backup technology, you’re missing the main way to justify their cost: saving money on energy every day.

Hands-on with home batteries

ZDNet’s recent roundup of the best home battery systems inspired me to visit a home battery installation in the San Francisco Bay Area where a Generac PWRcell system was being mounted inside the garage by Northern California installer Rob Heckendorn of Future Energy Savers. The system was fed by the home’s existing rooftop solar panels, something you can’t do with Tesla Powerwall home batteries, which must be combined with its specific solar roof tech.

A Tanjent Powerbanx home battery system (Image: Tanjent)

A Tanjent Powerbanx home battery system (Image: Tanjent)

The Generac system is modular, allowing the homeowner to add batteries in 3kWh increments up to 18kWh in a single battery cabinet housing. In this case, they chose three modules for a total of 12kWh of capacity, a number Heckedorn says is as close to an average as he sees and enough power to run three or four of the home’s dozen circuits for a few days.

Read more: cnet

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