Why should you use a virtual battery?

Reduced energy costs: By storing surplus solar energy, virtual batteries can reduce long-term electricity costs as users can rely less on grid power and avoid high peak-hour energy prices. Reduction in the cost of installation: by contracting a virtual battery with your electricity company you save the cost of conventional solar batteries.

What is a virtual battery?

What are virtual batteries? A virtual battery is a solution that revolutionizes the way solar energy is stored and used. Unlike traditional physical batteries, which store electricity in the form of chemical energy, the energy generated by your solar panels is supplied to the electrical grid.

Are virtual batteries the future of solar energy?

However, one of the main limitations of solar energy is its intermittency and its dependence on weather conditions. This is where virtual batteries are playing a crucial role in the solar energy revolution. Solar energy is a clean, inexhaustible and increasingly affordable source of electricity generation.

Could a 'virtual battery' save electricity?

Their contribution is to bring new types of electricity loads into the space of things we can quantify as virtual batteries.” MIT research suggests control policies treating smart appliances and electric cars as a collective “virtual battery” could lead to cheaper, cleaner power.

What is the difference between a virtual battery and a real battery?

But the faster-charging real battery will fill up before the slower-charging one does. So at the maximum charge rate, the capacity of the virtual battery is the capacity of the faster real battery, plus however much charge the slower battery can absorb by the time the faster battery fills. The remaining capacity of the slow battery must go unused.

How do I maximize the charge rate of a virtual battery?

To maximize the charge rate of the virtual battery, you need to use both real batteries; any two batteries can absorb charge faster than either of them can in isolation. But the faster-charging real battery will fill up before the slower-charging one does.