Home batteries
Specifications taken from manufacturer datasheets, with the Florida-specific considerations that decide whether a product suits your home. We list only products we hold a datasheet for.
Enphase IQ Battery 5P
Enphase IQ Battery 5P capacity, output and warranty from the manufacturer datasheet, plus what matters when installing it in Florida.
Tesla Powerwall 3
Tesla Powerwall 3 capacity, output and warranty from the manufacturer datasheet, plus what matters when installing it in Florida.
How to read a battery datasheet
Two numbers decide what a battery can actually do for you, and they are not interchangeable. Continuous output, in kilowatts, sets what you can switch on at all. Usable capacity, in kilowatt-hours, sets how long you can run it. A battery with a large capacity and modest output will run your lights for two days and refuse to start your air conditioner.
In Florida the output number usually matters more, because the load people actually want backed up is central air conditioning, and that is a power problem before it is an energy problem. A compressor also draws far more current starting than running, so the specification to check is what the battery can deliver in a surge, not its steady rating.
Usable capacity is the figure to compare, not nominal capacity. Nominal is the cells; usable is what the system will let you take out, and the gap between them is real. Round-trip efficiency then removes a few more per cent on the way in and out. Where a manufacturer publishes both, we list usable.
What no datasheet can tell you is how many batteries your home needs, because that depends on which circuits you want covered and what they draw. Our battery calculator asks you that instead of printing an hours figure that assumes a house we have never seen.