While a battery isn’t a necessary component of a PV installation, it increases the sustainability of your home by a lot. With your own energy storage, you become less dependent on the utility. The battery will power your home even if the grid fails and becomes especially valuable in times of blackouts or natural disasters. In this short article we’ll discuss the best solar batteries in 2024.

What is a battery?

Solar battery is a deep-cycle one which means that it can be charged, discharged and recharged again. Having a battery in a system can be very convenient for powering the house at night time and during times when the grid is down. Batteries are a necessary component of an off-grid system. In off-grid installation you don’t have a connection to the grid and rely on stored energy when solar panels don’t produce enough. 

If you want to add an energy storage to a grid-tie system, you need a special inverter called a hybrid inverter. Standard grid-tie inverters shut down automatically in case of a blackout. It’s a safety protocol — the grid must be free of current for workers to repair it. Hybrid inverter instead switches the house to a battery support, allowing for uninterrupted power supply. 

3 best batteries for solar panels

We’ve asked an expert to pick three best batteries for solar panels in 2024. Here are the ones that he prefers:

Generac PWRcell 3.0kW Lithium-Ion Battery Module

This is a light and compact battery module from Generac that can be installed inside or outside — certainly among the most popular solar batteries for 2024. You can stack together from three to six of these modules to match the needs of your system. It is easy to upgrade: you can add or remove modules at any time. The usable capacity of one module is 3 kWh with nominal voltage of 46.8VDC.

Enphase Encharge-3 Base Kit 

The Enphase Ensemble Encharge 10 is an all-in-one AC-coupled storage system that provides up to 10.5 kWh power capacity. It consists of three 3.36 kWh lithium-ion batteries and 12 integrated Enphase IQ8X-BAT microinverters. The battery is designed for wall-mount installation. It is suitable for grid-tied systems. The model comes with a warranty for 10 years or 4000 cycles: the battery should retain over >70% capacity.

Enphase Solar Battery Encharge-10 Base Kit

Enphase storage system allows you to retain power even when the grid is down. It has one battery module with 3.36 kWh power capacity, four embedded grid-forming microinverters with 1.28 kW power rating. You can add this system to old and new PV systems. The model comes with a 10-year warranty.