A rise in the number of PV plants with storage systems
In Germany, around 250,000 photovoltaic power plants were installed on private roofs last year – the majority of them alongside a home storage system.
Industry experts expect the annual installation rate of rooftop PV plants to almost double by 2025 compared to 2022. According to forecasts, the market for home storage systems is set to grow even faster than the PV market due to the catch-up effect, since many owners of existing PV plants are now adding a storage system to complement them. By 2030, the proportion of new PV plants with storage systems is expected to rise to a figure of up to 95 percent. In other words, in the long term, there are hardly any operators of solar power plants who do not wish to turn the benefits of a home storage system to their advantage.
Behind the high demand for PV power plants combined with storage systems is the desire among many homeowners to do something to combat rising energy prices, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and play their part in mitigating climate change. Both the heating transition and transport transition are increasing demand for electricity in households due to a rise in the use of heat pumps and electric cars, making it even more attractive for people to meet their own energy needs. In the case of heat pumps, for example, it is efficient to operate them using the green electricity generated at the property. And charging your own electric car with the power of the sun, at least in part using electricity generated directly from your own PV plant makes economic sense and is eco-friendly.
Homeowners with a photovoltaic power plant on the roof know that when the sun is no longer shining, particularly in the evening, the electricity for the dishwasher or television normally no longer comes from their own production source – unless the electricity flows from a home storage system. That’s because a home storage system accumulates the solar power produced during the day that is not consumed immediately and releases it again if the photovoltaic plant can supply little or no electricity at certain times of the day.
With small-scale, compact home storage systems, households not only use the green electricity generated by the solar power plant irrespective of the time, but also maximize their ability to meet their own energy needs – representing a significant step toward greater self-sufficiency at a time when there is an energy price crisis. According to data from the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), the reported additional capacity generated by photovoltaic power plants in 2022 was around 7.47 gigawatts (GW) – 25 percent more than in 2021. The market segment for power plants generating up to 30 kilowatt peak (kWp) – which primarily includes photovoltaic plants mounted on houses – accounted for around 3 GW of this figure and grew by 40 percent compared to the previous year. Since there are increasingly more photovoltaic plants, the number of installed home storage systems has now grown to over 600,000 units (as of 2022).
SENEC has installed more than 120,000 home storage systems
Since PV electricity, green heat and climate-friendly mobility are becoming increasingly interlinked anyway, SENEC, a Leipzig-based subsidiary of EnBW, has developed SENEC.360, a complete solution for covering a household’s own electricity needs: From the solar power plant on the roof to the smart electricity storage system with an account in the SENEC.Cloud, and from the heat pump as a heating source to the charging station for an electric car, all components intertwine using the so-called 360-degree approach.
In 2022, the Leipzig-based company was once again able to claim its place among the top three providers in the German home storage market0Source: EuPD Research 11/22. More than 120,000 home storage systems have now been installed in Germany, Italy and Australia. The figure for PV output sold in Germany also doubled last year to around 220 megawatts. Together with its customers, the company has thus helped to cut carbon emissions by around 430,000 metric tons in Germany. This is the equivalent to the total average carbon footprint of almost 40,000 German citizens0Source: https://www.bmuv.de/.
Virtual credit in the cloud
Home storage systems in combination with PV power plants play a key role in increasing the consumption of green electricity generated by the household. Yet they also reach the limits of their capacity when the sun shines particularly intensively on a summer’s day, for example, and more electricity is produced than can be stored. SENEC has a solution for this in the form of a virtual electricity account: PV power plant operators can store this surplus electricity in their personal cloud and use it flexibly – at any time of the year, when consumption is high due to a heat pump being used on a cloudy winter’s day, for instance.
Particularly practical: If the credit exceeds a certain electricity allocation based on the household’s own consumption, the company will reimburse the surplus. People operating a PV plant with home storage system can increase consumption of their self-generated power to up to 100 percent with the SENEC.Cloud while simultaneously reducing their energy costs by marketing the unneeded electricity.