When high winds and torrential rains knock out the grid, or heavy snows bring down power lines and blow transformers, you often turn to the simplest power storage device – a flashlight – to light your way in a powerless house. You may be grateful for the small beam of illumination, but the flashlight doesn’t preserve the food in your refrigerator, power your water heater or your stove.
A solar home is more resilient during natural disasters, especially when supported with energy storage.
What Makes a Solar Home Resilient During Natural Disasters?
The design of solar power systems provides advantages during tumultuous weather events:
- No moving parts mean less breakage, and solar panels are built to withstand harsh conditions. Here’s how:
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- Panels and racks can be designed to survive winds exceeding 200 miles per hour.
- Many panels are certified to hold up to 1-inch hailstones flying at more than 50 miles per hour.
- Testing by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) shows panels and mounting systems are fire retardant.
- Tilted panels can easily shed snow blankets, but even flatter panel configurations have been able to hold up to five feet of snow.
- Solar power systems continue generating electricity, even with minimal visible light.
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- The system may be less productive with storm cloud cover and rains but will continue to pull power from available light.
- No oversight, fuel or management required.
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- Unlike other power sources used during natural disasters, like gas or diesel generators, a solar power system can operate without any human intervention or external fuel source.
Your solar home may not be operating at 100% during power outages, but it will produce more energy than traditional power providers.
Adding energy storage to your home solar power system’s gives you independence from the grid, insulating your home from power losses due to natural disasters.
How Energy Storage Increases Your Solar Home’s Performance During Natural Disasters
Batteries using advanced technology to store solar energy became available several years ago. These solar batteries can be configured to use excess energy generated during the day as a backup during storms. If the power goes out, the battery starts up. And the battery will recharge as solar panels capture more energy.
While many current energy storage options are lithium-based, vanadium flow batteries from StorEn are emerging as a safer, longer-lasting solution. StorEn’s THERMASTABLE™ geothermal design provides greater efficiency than other batteries (+6% in round-trip efficiency) but also offers more durability during harsh conditions. Adding StoreEn’s vanadium flow storage to your solar home delivers a resilient, responsive power supply during storms.
You’ll be able to have some control during uncontrollable events and power your home with uninterrupted clean energy. Invest in StorEnTech today.