Solar Energy Storage
In the past, it’s cost more money than it was worth to store energy. However, as energy storage becomes more commonplace, the prices have lowered and made storage more practical from a financial standpoint. Depending on your business’s energy needs, investing in an energy storage facility can earn you significant savings on your energy bill, especially if you use solar energy in your dealings.
What to Consider for Solar Energy Storage
The first thing to understand when it comes to considering an energy storage system, or ESS, is that there are some situations in which it’s more beneficial and profitable than others:
- Large-scale, centralized storage, while more expensive upfront, ultimately provides better profit margins than smaller or decentralized operations.
- Energy storage becomes more useful when resources are not readily available during peak demand hours — usually, these are renewable energy sources, like solar power. In this case, an ESS will ensure you can use the energy you’ve worked hard generating all night long.
Why Invest in an Energy Storage Facility?
Some of the most common reasons clients come to us in search of solar energy storage include:
Energy arbitrage: You know that as the demand for energy changes, so does its price. When you have an ESS, you can wait until the price is at its lowest to charge the system up. Then, when demand and price are at their highest, you’ll be able to offload for a major profit.
Reduce demand charges: When demand charges are based on peak needs, you want to do everything you can to avoid hitting that quota. With an ESS, you can start discharging it when you notice your building getting near peak capacity. If you have a “peaky” building that often hits maximum capacity, you could cut your electric bill by as much as half with an ESS.
Prevent momentary outages: If you use sensitive equipment that needs a constant energy supply, even a minor outage can cause a lot of wasted time and money. By including a small ESS, sometimes known as an uninterruptible power supply or UPS, these outages become a thing of the past.
Alternative or aid to generators: When there’s a larger, gridwide outage, using an ESS as a backup is a quieter and more environmentally friendly power option over a generator. However, as an ESS will eventually need power to recharge, it may be better as an auxiliary to a generator. They can work together to lessen the load on one another for some time.
Assessing the Benefits of Solar Energy Storage at Your Facilities
Before deciding whether an ESS is a sound choice for your facilities, take the time to run an energy audit. An audit can help you analyze how your operations use energy and how much a storage facility will actually help you. You may also want to consider these questions:
- What do you hope to achieve by installing storage?
- What’s your current rate structure? Does it account for power factor changes?
- Are there local regulations that may affect the installation? Conversely, are there incentives for installing renewable energy storage?
- Are your energy fluctuations predictable or random?
How SelectROW Can Help
At SelectROW, our commitment to helping our clients through our right-of-way acquisition, consulting and negotiating services has not changed since our inception in 1972. Our wide spectrum of experience means there’s almost nothing we can’t handle for you. When you need support in growing your business’s capacity, our team will be there to make sure it gets done.
For more information on your energy storage site selection options, contact us today at 1-888-997-3532 or fill out our online form. We’ll help your business transform into a green energy powerhouse.