The home battery: it seems like the ideal solution. You do your bit for the climate and you make money too. But will this remain so in the future? According to research by CE Delft, the payback period is much longer than thought.
Prolonged Payback Period
“I expect that people can still make a profit with a home battery for 2 to 3 years, but after that the payback period will be 15 years,” says Lucas van Cappellen of research firm CE Delft. He conducted research on the home battery that allows you to store solar energy and trade it on the Dutch energy market. This is done on the so-called imbalance market, the market of energy supply and demand. This must always be in balance to provide enough power. That’s where the home battery helps, and it makes you money as an owner.
Market Limitations
But that will become more difficult in the future. “The market is not infinite; there is a limit,” Van Cappellen continues. “The market can only fit 100,000 home batteries or a few large batteries. Those large batteries are now being built in abundance in the Netherlands. This makes it increasingly difficult to compete in the energy market with your own home battery.”
Profit Warning
In the future, home batteries can no longer make the profits of today. “The payback period will then no longer be 5 years, which is currently advertised, but 10 to 15 years,” says van Cappellen. “That’s equal to the technical lifespan, which means the battery will need replacing again by the time you start making money from it.”
Opposing Views
But according to spokesman at energy provider Zonneplan Frank Breukelman, this conclusion is incorrect. “I can’t imagine the number of home batteries growing faster than the number of renewables in the coming years.”
Breukelman also thinks CE Delft’s report is already dated. “Developments in the energy world are moving very fast. The report came out in December, but in the energy world that was already quite a long time ago. The purchase price of home batteries is now already lower than the price the researchers were calculating. Also, batteries now have a better efficiency and there are already other ways you can use batteries.”
Potential and Opportunities
Rather, Breukelman sees opportunities with the advent of large batteries. “These could actually go well with local energy storage in people’s homes, in the form of a home battery. Also, I don’t think the imbalance market will become saturated any time soon.” He refers to the fact that climate goals still require a lot of additional renewable energy. “We cannot imagine that the growth of renewable energy – solar panels and wind turbines, for example – will be overtaken by storage capacity in the coming years. That market is still in its infancy, so that fear is unfounded as far as we are concerned.”
Real-Life Experiences
Someone who is very happy with his home battery is Aljo Hartgers. Together with Danny Oosterveer, they form the duo The Green Nerds and make the podcast of the same name. “Last weekend I earned about 15 euros with my home battery. I’ve had worse weekends.”
Hartgers is not worried that he will have no use for his home battery if giant batteries start saturating the imbalance market. “I don’t think the soup will be eaten as hot as it’s served. I think the peaks and troughs in the imbalance market will continue for a while and I can still make money with my battery for now.”
No Guarantees
Hartgers knows he has an advantage because he got in early. “Right now I’m still earning from it. And I can also set up my battery to just store my own power so I’m less dependent on energy prices. With my own stored energy, I can run as many as 25 loads of laundry.”
Van Cappellen understands the enthusiasm of people who are now making money from their home battery. “That’s also going well now, fortunately. But what matters to me is the promised payback period. I think promising such a short payback period in this uncertain market is firm. You can’t guarantee at all what will happen in the energy market. To then promise consumers something that you’re not yet at all sure you’ll deliver on, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that.”
As the debate continues, the future of home batteries remains uncertain. While some see great potential, others warn of the challenges ahead.
