You live in Utah and have been impacted by a grid outage, whether it be accidental or controlled due to Utah wildfires. It’s the middle of summer and it doesn’t seem to matter if you live in Park City or Salt Lake, it’s hot. And now there’s no AC. The impact of discomfort or level of inconvenience is higher than anticipated.
This leads you to discuss investing in solar and battery storage, or adding battery storage to your existing solar. The two components create a microgrid and keep your home operational during prolonged grid outages, especially useful if you work from home.
The most cost effective installation is for a whole-home backup. It is also based on your electrical configuration and the location of different components.
- The first item that dictates cost and design is the location of the battery, which is also dictated by International Fire Code
- The ideal location for the battery in Utah is in a finished and insulated attached garage
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- – Code requires that wherever the battery is to be installed, the area is finished or drywalled. Drywall is a natural fire suppression.
- – Code also requires a bluetooth heat detector (similar to a smoke detector) that can communicate with a smoke alarm in the house for audio warning purposes
- – Finally, the code requires that the battery can not be located at a wall that has a living space on the other side of it. (bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms)
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- The second factor that dictates cost is the location of the key components
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- – In an ideal installation, the battery, electrical meter and branch panels are all within 25’ of each other. The majority of homes are configured this way but not all
- – The further the distance these components are from each other, the more wiring and labor is required. This will increase the cost of the installation
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- Whole-Home vs. Partial Backup
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- – A whole-home design minimizes cost. However, the entire home will have access to the solar and battery storage energy during a grid outage
- – A partial-home design increases cost as a new branch panel will be created. Only the loads in this electrical panel will have access to the solar and battery storage during a grid outage
- – More to come about these two designs in our next blog post
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Tune in to our Next Blog Post: Battery Storage Expectations and Use