SunPower says battery storage already economic – when there’s value to customer

Leading solar manufacturer and home energy provider SunPower says battery storage technology is already economic in some situations – where it has value to the customer.

Networks, retailers, solar companies, and consumers are fascinated about the idea of grid parity for battery storage. Is it already here, or will it take a decade, as some suggest.

Tom Werner, the CEO of SunPower, was asked about it at a briefing overnight when the company announced its March quarter results.

Werner says the economics already work, particularly where the value of that storage is high for the customer – such as protecting produce from blackouts.

“We’ve been optimistic in investing in the combination of solar plus storage plus energy management, and we will have a comprehensive offering. We already do self-storage. We’ll have a comprehensive offering …. this summer.

“So it’s a really powerful proposition because of the obvious things you can do, you can use solar when you want, you can optimize load.

“In terms of projecting when storage is economic, the last comment I’ll make is it depends on the application and what the energy is worth to the customer.

“So it’s economic today where the loss of energy is very expensive to the customer, so for example, a battery backup where, again, downtime would be really catastrophic.”

Head of business units Howard Wenger added that storage probably works best in the commercial sector – where power outages can be catastrophic – and where that business is.

“So where there are places of high demand charges where you can clip the peak demand of the customer, you can really realize some significant demand charge savings.

“So those are places like California and New York and Hawaii. And we’re seeing paybacks that can be less than 5 years, to give you a feeling.

“Residential in the U.S., the economics of storage, because solar isn’t predominantly places where there’s Net Metering, the economics of storage are more challenged, but there’s still value to the customer because you’re providing backup power and security.

“In places like Germany, storage with residential customers is quite powerful because there, you can increase the self-consumption and get the full value of the solar generated and export less to the grid, capturing high retail price. So it really depends on geography and segment.”

That accords with an assessment by Australian battery storage developer Redflow, which said earlier this year that the nature of tariffs in Germany meant that its new storage offerings were already competing.

Redflow says that is not yet the case in Australia, although others suggest that storage is providing strong returns in Australia. SunPower is also conducting solar plus storage trials in Australia, as a precursor to rolling out home energy management systems. No mention was made of Australia in the overnight chat with analysts.