There has been a growing demand for whole-home battery backup systems in recent years. Homeowners are increasingly seeking cleaner and more sustainable solutions to protect their homes during power outages.
These systems provide peace of mind by ensuring your household can continue functioning normally during a power outage. This allows you and your family to continue daily tasks without disruption until power is restored.
Understandably, many people have concerns about the cost and how much maintenance is required for these systems. But thanks to modern advances in technology, they are more accessible, affordable, and easier to maintain than ever.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know when choosing the perfect battery solution for your home, including costs and how to pick the right configuration for your requirements.
What Affects the Cost of a Whole House Battery System?
Battery systems can vary dramatically in price depending on a number of factors. By assessing your requirements, you can easily find a solution that meets all of your needs while staying within your budget.
Common factors that influence price include:
- Battery capacity, type, and number of batteries used.
- Energy Management System (EMS) and Smart Features.
- Charging options and modularity.
- Inverter quality and efficiency.
- Installation and upkeep.
- Batteries
The capacity, type, and number of batteries used in your system are going to play the biggest role in overall cost. Obviously, larger homes with higher power usage will need either larger capacity batteries, or simply have more of them.
Kilowatt-hour is a measure of energy consumption. One kWh is equivalent to using 1,000 watts of power for one hour. When thinking in terms of cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh), the larger the battery, the lower the cost per kWh due to economies of scale and how the manufacturing works.
For that reason, it’s important to determine the ideal battery capacity for your home's size and daily power consumption. This will ensure you aren’t either running out of power midway through a blackout or left having to supplement your batteries with more costly alternatives like a generator.
To determine the average daily power use of your home, follow these steps:
Check your electricity bill for total kWh usage over a billing cycle (usually monthly).
Divide the total kWh by the number of days in the billing period to get the daily average.
Track daily usage with a smart meter or plug-in energy monitor for more accuracy.
In Canada, the average daily energy consumption of a home is 20 to 30 kWh. So you can multiply that by the number of days you wish your backup system to last in order to determine your required battery capacity.
Energy Management System (EMS)
EMS provides long-term savings by optimizing the timing and distribution of power within your battery system, helping to avoid peak electricity rates and reducing overall energy costs.
By intelligently managing energy usage, it ensures your system can operate as efficiently as possible while minimizing unnecessary power consumption.
While the technology carries a higher upfront cost, over time, an EMS can yield substantial long-term savings thanks to its intelligent performance-enhancing benefits.
Charging Options
Many backup systems provide flexible charging options, including integration with alternative charging sources like solar panels, fossil fuel generators, and more.
This increased flexibility, similar to EMS features, adds an initial upfront cost but can yield substantial long-term savings if you need to expand or explore alternative means of charging down the line.
But it’s not just about powering large devices; the AC300 has several features that allow you to keep all manner of modern electronic devices like laptops and smartphones running thanks to its extensive set of outputs, which include:
- A wireless charging pad.
- USB-C (with PD3.0 protocol support).
- USB-A and USB-A with fast charging.
With the AC500 you can charge your system from almost anywhere. It boasts a monstrous 8,000W input rate, allowing you to power it from sources like:
Solar Panels.
- In-car cigarette lighters.
- Any regular fossil fuel generator (up to 5,000 w).
- 12v/24v lead-acid battery charging.
- Combining multi-charge sources.
Inverter Quality and Efficiency
Not all inverters are made equal. Lower-efficiency inverters, while offering a cheaper upfront cost, will waste energy over time, leading to higher long-term costs.
Higher quality inverters, such as those used on the Bluetti AC300+B300K, can convert DC to AC power more efficiently, reducing energy loss and ultimately lowering costs over time.
Installation Costs
Home battery backup systems are quite simple to set up by yourself. However, it is important to ensure that the system is installed in accordance with local codes and regulations, which may vary depending on which area of Canada you reside in.
Therefore, it’s recommended to have a trained electrician wire the system into your home’s electrical panel.
Conserving Energy During a Blackout
A useful way to lower your overall costs is by employing smart energy-saving habits to further limit your energy consumption during a blackout to reduce your total battery capacity requirement. These include:
Only keeping on essential appliances such as refrigerators.
Unplug all unused devices and appliances.
Limit the use of air conditioners and heaters. You can dress up/down instead.
Consider installing LED light bulbs, as they use considerably less energy than regular incandescent bulbs.
Avoid using electric ovens or stoves, as they need a lot of power! Instead, consider keeping a temporary gas stove at home for short-term use.
Invest in a few portable power stations to charge phones and laptops.
If it’s especially cold, block drafts can be used to close off unused rooms. This enables you to keep the important rooms warmer for longer while using less energy.
By following these steps you can be sure that you’re using power optimally and not incurring any unnecessary costs.
Choosing The Best Whole Home Battery System for Your Home
Ultimately, there’s no single battery system that’s going to suit everyone. Depending on your power requirements, charging preferences, and desired features, you can put together a system from Buetti’s range that provides all the functionality you need.
While it may be tempting to simply pick the cheapest option and roll with that, putting careful thought into things like efficiency, battery life, and expandability ensures your system will be ready to meet any future demands.
Battery Chemistry and Lifespan
Battery technology has improved significantly in recent years. While traditional nickel-cobalt batteries offered good performance, they tended to lose capacity faster than newer technologies. Mining cobalt and nickel is a costly process, making these batteries expensive, and their limited recycling options are detrimental to the environment.
Similarly, while lead-acid batteries are functional and offer a relatively cheap upfront cost, they suffer from a shorter lifespan. They also require regular maintenance, such as monitoring water levels to ensure proper charging. Additionally, the sulfuric acid and lead used in these batteries are toxic, posing health risks to users and environmental hazards if not disposed of properly.
On the other hand, modern lithium-ion phosphate batteries (LiFePO₄), such as those offered on the Bluetti AC500 + B300S, are highly reliable and long-lasting.
It features 3500+ life cycles to 80% capacity, meaning it can be charged and discharged over 3,500 times before the capacity drops below 80%.
To put this in context, if you charged and then discharged the system completely every single day, it would take almost 10 years for the battery to drop to 80% of its original capacity.
Health and Maintenance
Battery backup systems of old would require a fair amount of maintenance and upkeep to ensure they would perform when you needed them most.
This would include things like regularly topping off water and keeping the terminals clean.
With Bluetti products, you can monitor battery charge states and health directly from the app by tapping the BMS (Battery Management System) tab and instantly access detailed insights and information.
This includes things like energy consumption, cell voltage, and temperatures.
But that’s not all. The app gives you a comprehensive overview of the entire system, allowing you to check on solar input generation levels and charge/discharge data.
You’ll always be in the know about what’s happening with your system.
Modularity and Expansion Options
The base AC300 Power Station and B300K expansion battery are perfectly adequate to keep you going during temporary outages.
By expanding the system with an expansion battery, you can add 2,764.8Wh capacity, which will keep your entire home running for longer. Even when using demanding appliances like dishwashers or electric grills.
If that’s not enough for you, adding a second AC300 Power Station can gear you up to handle blackouts for an extended period, effectively giving you complete protection during the most egregious of outages.
Even if you decide to start small, the modularity of Bluetti’s products ensures you can continue to build your system as demands grow.
With the robust AC500, you are able to add up to six B300s battery units at 3,072Wh each. With this, you can expect to meet an entire family's needs for as long as 6 days.
Warranty
As a system owner, having an extended warranty gives you the ultimate peace of mind that should anything happen, you’re well taken care of.
Both the AC300+B300K and AC300+B300K offer a full 4-year warranty. With friendly customer service who’ll help you through the repair process, you’ll feel safe in the knowledge that your power system will be with you for years to come.
The Ultimate In-Home Electricity Security
As you can see, modern technology has afforded whole home battery backup systems massive advances when it comes to battery capacity, longevity, input and output options, and modularity.
With these fully expandable systems, you’re able to start as small or as big as you like and easily increase your capacity down the line. So even those on a tight budget can get started.
Solar panel integration allows for significant long-term savings using clean, renewable energy sources.
It’s never been easier to keep your home protected against unexpected power outages in such a reliable and accessible way. We hope this article has been helpful in allowing you to assess your needs and make an informed purchasing decision.
Have fun building your own whole home battery backup system!
