Solar Panels and Battery Storage: Benefits for Business Energy Management
What Is Solar Battery Storage?
Solar battery storage combines solar panels with a battery energy storage system (BESS) to capture excess electricity generated during the day and store it for later use. Businesses can then use the stored energy during peak demand periods, grid outages, or when solar production is low, helping reduce electricity costs and improve energy resilience.
Battery storage and solar panels are two of the best solutions for optimizing your energy usage and lowering dependence on costly fossil fuels. Each provides significant benefits on its own. Solar panels generate clean energy and reduce the amount of power you have to purchase from the grid. Batteries store energy to optimize consumption, reduce demand charges from utility companies, and provide backup power.
But when you pair batteries and solar together, you unlock further savings and make even more of a positive impact.
Benefits of Combined Commercial Solar & Battery Energy Storage System
More Reliable Backup Power
Combining solar panels with battery storage provides reliable backup power by storing electricity generated on-site for use during grid outages. Solar panels generate energy on-site, without needing to get energy from the grid. Energy demand is increasing across the U.S. and as a result, the grid that supplies most of our energy is strained, resulting in more frequent grid downtime and events like blackouts. By storing the energy generated by your solar panels in batteries, you get reliable backup power that can help your business keep running when the grid fails. This increases your energy resilience and protects you from lost business and other negative effects of grid strain. Additionally, the battery system can be used to filter any utility disturbances like harmonics and voltage imbalances. Improving power quality can increase the life of manufacturing equipment.
Getting The Most from Solar Panels
Solar plus batteries help businesses maximize the potential of solar generation. Solar panels often generate more electricity than a facility can use at certain times of the day. Without battery storage, some of that excess energy may be sent to the grid or simply go unused. When a battery is connected to rooftop solar, it enables businesses to generate and utilize significantly more of their solar system’s power generation potential. Batteries create an always-on place to store that energy. If your facility is closed on the weekend, for example, your solar panels and battery can keep working to generate and store free energy that you can use when the lights come back on. Or it can be used strategically during periods of high usage to avoid peak demand charges from the utilities.
Lower Energy Costs and Protection Against Rising Rates
Adding batteries to your solar system helps stabilize operational costs. Maximizing how much energy you can use and store from the sun helps significantly reduce the amount of energy you need to purchase from the grid. With traditional energy sources seeing volatile price fluctuations, consistent growth, and demand charges, the more you can offset with solar, the better for your bottom line. Combining solar and batteries helps stabilize energy costs, provides greater budget predictability, and helps businesses better control operating expenses over time.
Sustainability Milestones
Together, solar and batteries expedite sustainability goals. The grid’s energy supply primarily comes from fossil fuels. Another advantage of combining solar panels and battery storage is that your business becomes more sustainable. The more clean energy you use to power your facility, the more you lower your carbon footprint.
Why Businesses Are Prioritizing Solar Plus Storage
Organizations across manufacturing, retail, fitness, and other industries are increasingly adopting solar-plus-storage solutions to improve energy resilience, manage operating costs, and meet sustainability objectives.
How Solar Battery Storage Helps Manufacturers and other Operators
An energy short squeeze is taking place, largely due to the AI data center build out combined with heating electrification and electric vehicles. Energy intensive manufacturing is now having to compete for capacity. Installing DER (distributed energy resources) such as solar and batteries at the point of use allows businesses and manufacturers to reduce their grid exposure. Forward-thinking manufacturers and operators can bypass utility backlogs and reduce exposure to wholesale energy market price increases by investing in behind-the-meter solutions. These technologies can be optimized to match energy generation with the most expensive electricity.
Get Solar and Battery Storage without the Investment
Solar panels and battery storage each provide meaningful energy savings on their own, but together they create a more resilient, cost-effective, and sustainable energy strategy. By generating clean electricity on-site and storing it for future use, businesses can lower energy costs, reduce demand charges, increase backup power capabilities, and make progress toward sustainability goals.
As energy prices continue to fluctuate and grid reliability becomes a growing concern, combining solar and battery storage can help lower business risk.
Budderfly provides solar panels and battery energy storage systems (BESS) for businesses across the country. We fund and install these solutions alongside our suite of smart technologies and energy-saving equipment such as high-efficiency HVAC, LED lighting, and more.
To learn how your facility can access the benefits of solar and batteries, contact us today.
FAQ
What is a battery energy storage system (BESS)?
A battery energy storage system (BESS) stores electricity for use at a later time. Businesses use BESS technology to reduce demand charges, improve resilience, and maximize solar energy usage.
Can battery storage work without solar panels?
Yes. Battery energy storage systems can be installed independently and charged from the grid to help lower demand charges, reduce peak energy consumption, and provide backup power. However, pairing batteries with solar panels increases savings potential by allowing businesses to store and use clean, self-generated energy instead of purchasing electricity from the grid.
How much can a battery improve the value of a solar energy system?
A battery helps businesses capture and store excess solar energy that would otherwise be unused or exported to the grid. This stored energy can then be used during periods of high electricity prices, peak demand, or power outages, helping maximize the benefits of solar generation while increasing energy resilience.
A battery can be used to future proof a solar energy system. A battery is not a static piece of hardware like solar, and it has software that can be used to change the charging and discharging profile of the BESS. This means that if utility tariffs, or load profiles of a given facility change when the battery discharges can change to continue to offset the most expensive electricity.
Is solar and battery storage a good fit for every business?
Many commercial and industrial facilities can benefit from a combined solar and battery system, particularly those with high electricity costs, significant demand charges, sustainability goals, or concerns about grid reliability such as manufacturers. The ideal system size and configuration will depend on factors such as energy usage patterns, utility rates, facility operations, and backup power requirements. It is the best fit for facilities that have predictable usage patterns and load profiles where there is a 25-50% variation in peak load vs base load consumption.
Does battery storage reduce demand charges?
Yes. Battery energy storage systems can reduce demand charges by supplying stored electricity during periods of peak energy use. This lowers a facility's highest level of grid demand, which is often used to calculate commercial utility demand charges.