Households with solar panels can now install a home battery themselves. Without an installer or high installation costs. This is reported by HomeWizard, market leader in energy insights for consumers. Plug it into the socket, follow a number of steps in the app and you automatically save your own generated solar energy for a later time, for example at night.
The Plug-in Battery works wirelessly with the P1 Meter to store the solar power that you would otherwise supply. When you need energy, power from the battery is used instead of expensive mains power. This way you benefit from solar energy day and night.
Home batteries from different providers cost between 3,500 and 8,000 euros excluding installation. The HomeWizard home battery will cost 1,395 euros. The first deliveries will take place in July. The company wants to make sustainable solar energy storage accessible to the general public, with an affordable home battery that you can install yourself.
Pay for return
The six largest energy suppliers in the Netherlands have started charging feed-in costs to consumers or have announced that they will do so soon. Energy suppliers are faced with higher costs due to the netting scheme and the growth in the supply of returned solar energy. They pass these costs on to their customers with solar panels. The netting scheme will end on January 1, 2027, the new cabinet announced earlier this year. Households with a home battery save money because they use more solar power themselves and supply less. They are able to minimize or even completely prevent return fines.
First battery with a standard plug
HomeWizard is the first to present a home battery with a normal 220V plug. The so-called HomeWizard Plug-In Battery stores your sustainable solar power for a later time. Paul Straathof, founder of HomeWizard, about the new product: “To make the use of sustainable energy accessible to the general public, we started developing a home battery years ago that anyone can install themselves. By involving as many households as possible in the Netherlands, we hope to contribute to accelerating the energy transition.”
The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) has determined that as a consumer you are allowed to supply a limited amount of electricity back to a socket. For this we adhere to the European (EN/IEC 50549) standard, which allows a limit of up to 800 watts and additional HomeWizard patented protections that go further than this standard to achieve a safe product.
Grid congestion
The term grid congestion is becoming increasingly common in the news. Simply put, this is a traffic jam on the power grid in your neighborhood. There is too much electricity trying to travel over the same cables at the same time. This occurs when there is much more supply than demand, for example because much more is generated than consumed on sunny days. Batteries offer a solution here.
By charging a home battery with excess solar power from your own solar panels, you can use the same power again in the evening, night and morning. If everyone maximizes their self-consumption in this way and returns less, we will relieve the grid. At other times, the self-generated power comes from the battery instead of from the grid, which also reduces congestion on the power grid in the neighborhood.
Grows with you
Many home batteries are too large. Not in size, but in capacity. This means you pay for storage that is not empty in the summer and not full in the winter. In an average home, storage between 2 kWh and 5 kWh is perfect to power all appliances in the house during the night. That is why one HomeWizard Plug-In Battery can store up to 2.7 kWh. The battery can charge and discharge up to 800 watts. Need more? Easily stack one or more batteries, even at a later time.
HomeWizard Plug-In Battery
The HomeWizard Plug-In Battery will be available from July this year. The home battery has a capacity of 2.7 kWh and works completely independent of brand. This means that the home battery works with any solar panel inverter and any energy supplier. One battery can charge with 800 watts and discharge 800 watts. If there is a change in consumption, the number of home batteries can be expanded at any time by 2.7 kWh per battery.
A single home battery reduces approximately 300 kg of CO2 emissions per year, making the HomeWizard home battery CO2 neutral within three years. With a noise level of nominal 32 dB, the noise is comparable to that of a refrigerator. Because each home battery has its own micro-inverter, they are much more energy efficient, even at low powers, than a battery with one large inverter. The Plug-In Battery consumes less than one watt in standby.
Reserve your Plug-In Battery
The supply of the Plug-In Battery is limited. There are a large number in production, but these have different delivery times starting this summer. By making a reservation with a deposit of €50, you secure one of the batteries that are already in the production line and HomeWizard can scale up better. The sooner you reserve, the further forward you will be in the ‘queue’.