Yeah, there are a lot of more affordably priced solutions out there, but they still need a subpanel or similar cutover switch to be installed and that's where a lot of the electrician's cost is. Plus, the inexpensive ones like this $3300 Ecoflow are 120VAC (up to 3600W), so if you want to be able to power larger household loads like an oven or heat pump, you need to buy two (or more) of them (or a bigger unit), which doubles the price and gets you into the price ranger of other whole-house systems like a Powerwall or Enphase.
With the 120VAC unit, about all I could power in my house is lights, TV's, and maybe some small kitchen appliances, which limits how much power I could shift off of peak, maybe a KWh or two, which makes it harder to get any payback on the investment.
Unless the spread between peak/offpeak power prices becomes larger, I'm not sure that battery storage is going to be a worthwhile investment (for me). Or maybe if the utility bought back power at a reasonable rate during peak periods as the other poster's power company does...But the California PUC doesn't seem to be interested in incentivizing that model.
Johnny555|2 years ago
With the 120VAC unit, about all I could power in my house is lights, TV's, and maybe some small kitchen appliances, which limits how much power I could shift off of peak, maybe a KWh or two, which makes it harder to get any payback on the investment.
Unless the spread between peak/offpeak power prices becomes larger, I'm not sure that battery storage is going to be a worthwhile investment (for me). Or maybe if the utility bought back power at a reasonable rate during peak periods as the other poster's power company does...But the California PUC doesn't seem to be interested in incentivizing that model.