Franklin Home Power Solution
As climate concerns grow and energy costs continue to rise, many homeowners are embracing the idea of a net-zero home, a residence that produces as much renewable energy as it consumes over the course of a year. While installing solar panels provides a robust energy source for you to use free, renewable, clean electricity to power your appliances, achieving the goal of a net-zero home demands a holistic approach to energy generation, consumption, and storage.
This entails the need for a critical energy technology: the home battery storage. Choosing the right battery can be the difference between just reducing your carbon footprint and truly becoming energy freedom.
In this guide, we’ll explore why a battery storage system is crucial for promoting net zero and how to choose the right solution for your home.
Benefits of Net-Zero Homes
Net-zero homes are often seen as futuristic or high-tech, but they offer very real, present-day benefits:
- Energy Freedom: By generating and storing your own power, you’re less vulnerable to rising and fluctuating electricity rates, grid outages, or policy shifts.
- Lower Lifetime Costs: While upfront investment can be significant, the long-term savings on utility bills, coupled with government incentives, often result in a favorable payback period. For instance, the FranklinWH system can generate positive returns for 8-10 years under warranty.
- Environmental Impact: By drastically reducing (or even eliminating) fossil fuel-based energy consumption, net-zero homes help mitigate climate change.
- Resiliency and Security: With the right battery system, your home can operate independently even during blackouts or energy crises all day long without any power disruptions.
- Market Value: A well-designed net-zero home often commands a premium in the real estate market, especially in sustainability-conscious regions.
Why Battery Storage Matters for Achieving Net-Zero Homes
Solar systems alone are literally impossible to make a home net zero. While they generate electricity during daylight hours, most households consume power at night, when solar output drops to zero. This mismatch leads to overproduction and energy waste during the day and reliance on grid power at night, unless energy can be stored effectively.
This is where home batteries play a pivotal role, bridging the gap between intermittent solar generation and consistent household demand. A robust home battery system allows you to:
- Store excess solar energy during the day for later use at night or during outages
- Shift energy usage to avoid peak grid pricing, especially under time-of-use (TOU) tariffs (e.g., use battery power during peak hours when electricity price spikes)
- Limit exports to the grid when feed-in tariffs are low or capped, protecting your solar investment.
- Enable full energy autonomy, especially in remote or off-grid locations.
How to Select the Best Battery Storage System for Net Zero
Choosing the right battery system entails the need to match the system to your lifestyle, climate, energy consumption need, and future plans. Here are key factors to consider:
1. Usable Capacity vs. Nominal Capacity
Understand how much of a battery’s stated capacity is actually usable. Some systems reserve a buffer to prolong battery life. Focus on usable kilowatt-hours (kWh) instead of just total capacity.
2. Cycle Life and Throughput Warranty
Look beyond flashy "15-year warranty" claims. A truly valuable battery will also include a warranted energy throughput (e.g., warrantied 60 MWh over 15 years), ensuring it can meet your daily energy needs over time.
3. Power Rating
A battery’s power rating (in kilowatts, kW) determines how many appliances it can run at once. For whole-home backup or high-demand scenarios (e.g., EV charging, HVAC), you’ll want both high continuous output and strong peak power to handle the initial power burst when starting a particular energy-intensive device.
4. AC-Coupled vs. DC-Coupled
AC-coupled systems are more flexible for retrofit solar installs, while DC-coupled systems are often more efficient for new builds. Choose based on your existing solar setup and upgrade plans.
5. Software and Energy Management
A solar plus storage system’s brain, the energy management system (EMS), is what makes the holistic system intelligent, often consisting of cutting-edge software and hardware housed in a gateway (eg., the FranklinWH aGate). Advanced EMS optimizes when to charge, discharge, or export energy based on weather, varied tariffs, and usage patterns. A battery system with an automatic transfer switch (ATS) is only enough for backup purpose during outages, but not capable of intelligent energy optimization for the net-zero goal .
6. Scalability
Can you add more batteries later without significant modifications to your existing system as your needs grow? That’s a big question. As you add EVs, heat pumps, or more family members, which increases your energy demand, a scalable system with backward and cross-compatibility future-proofs your energy setup.
7. Safety and Chemistry
Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries offer the greater thermal stability than other lithium-ion chemistries. Prioritize systems that have undergone rigorous safety certifications and seismic or weather testing, especially if you live in a high-risk area.
8. Local Incentives and VPP Compatibility
Many states, such as California, offer rebates and virtual power plant (VPP) participation benefits. Ensure your battery is eligible and VPP-capable, even if you don’t enroll right away, which allows you to reap another layer of financial benefits, shorten payback period, and contribute power to the community.
FranklinWH Energy Management and Battery Storage System: A Model for Achieving a Net-Zero Home
The FranklinWH energy management and battery storage system helps achieve a net-zero home by maximizing solar energy utilization, providing backup power during outages, and optimizing energy consumption. It does this by intelligently managing power from solar panels, grid, batteries, and even generators and EVs, creating a self-reliant microgrid. This holistic approach reduces reliance on the grid, lowers electricity bills, and contributes to a more sustainable energy future. Below are the feature details:
- Intelligent Energy Management: The FranklinWH aGate energy controller manages the energy flow, optimizing when to use solar, stored energy, or grid power to minimize energy costs and maximize self-consumption.
- Whole-Home Backup: The system offers whole-home backup power with a single battery unit, ensuring that all home appliances and systems remain operational during an outage.
- Expandable Storage: FranklinWH systems are designed to be expandable, allowing homeowners to increase their battery storage capacity from 15 to 225 kWh (1-15 units) per aGate as their energy needs grow.
- Remote Control and Monitoring: The FranklinWH App allows homeowners to monitor their energy usage, control their system, and even manage individual circuits remotely.
- Cost Savings: By optimizing energy consumption through tactics such as time-of-use (TOU) control and reducing reliance on the grid, the FranklinWH System helps homeowners save a significant amount of money on their electricity bills.
- 15-Year Warranty: The industry-leading battery warranty ensures rock-solid reliability and increased long-term savings.
Conclusion
Choosing the right home battery system is essential for achieving a net-zero home. By installing an energy-efficient solar-plus-battery storage system, homeowners can reduce energy bills, gain energy independence, and lower their environmental impact. The FranklinWH System is the epitome of helping achieve a net-zero home—maximizing renewable energy usage, providing whole-home backup, and intelligently managing energy flow. With the right setup, your home can become more sustainable, resilient, and future-ready.
