Solar Battery Storage Blog

For most businesses, the ultimate measure of success is profitability. In order to achieve their optimal profit goals, businesses need to carefully manage their expenses while ensuring keeping their prices attractive for their customers. It’s a careful balancing act that requires a high degree of business expertise.

One of the critical factors that affects the profitability of a business is operational expenses — costs in carrying out an organization's day-to-day activities.  For many businesses, the biggest overhead expense is their electric utility bill. This isn’t going to change.  Energy is getting more expensive every year! ‍

In fact, most businesses will see a 10% increase in their energy bills this year due to time-of-use rate changes.

Offset your rising operational expenses with commercial solar battery storage

Energy costs are not going to get any lower — in fact, they have already started going up. On top of that, businesses are facing higher payroll costs coupled with additional expenses. It’s time to look for ways to offset and take control of these rising operation costs.

Does your business deal with the following issues?

• Rising electricity bills: The utility companies have changed their most expensive hours from day to evening. This means that electricity costs more between 4pm and 9pm, which is also can be the busiest time for many businesses. The electric utility expense can increase as much as 10% annually.‍
• Rising payroll expenses: By 2023, the minimum wage in California will increase to $15 an hour in all areas. For many businesses that hire minimum wage employees, staffing costs will almost double and for some it already has had a negative effect. Profit margins will continue to erode. ‍
• Rising overhead costs: In addition to increasing utilities and payroll expenses, businesses face higher overhead costs trying to comply with California Title 24 and other regulations and code changes.

In order to remain profitable, businesses need to look for a solution that helps them lower their operational costs, so they can maintain level prices for their customers.

Lowering payroll costs and overhead costs is not always possible. However, there is something you can do about that rising electricity bill: install solar with battery storage!  

Solar battery storage lowers your energy bill

Running air conditioners, lights, refrigeration, and computers are all integral parts of most businesses — they simply can’t function without them. Unfortunately, not using them in order to lower energy usage to lower costs is not an option.

By installing commercial solar on their roofs, businesses can begin to produce their own energy. This is a great start to reducing your energy bill. In fact, our proprietary system design enables us to install as many as 30% more modules on your roof than other companies, which increases your overall solar energy production by 30%.

But that’s not enough to minimize your utility bill. In order to really see the savings on operational costs, businesses need solar with battery storage.

With a battery energy storage system, businesses can not only produce their own energy, they can store their excess energy for later use to maximize savings.

How a battery energy storage system works to save you money, step by step

If your business installs commercial solar without solar battery storage, the excess energy you produce is lost to the grid.

Solar modules produce the most energy during sunny daylight hours, usually between 11am and 3pm. The problem is, many businesses use more energy during evening hours.

With solar battery storage, you can store the extra energy you produce during the day and use it in the evening when energy costs are higher. It can also be stored, credited and used during the summer months when air conditioning usage and the summer cost is highest.

Here’s exactly how solar energy storage works:

1. Energy production: Your commercial solar generates energy during the day, sometimes as much as 12 hours with peak production between the hours of 11am and 3pm.
2. Battery charging: Additional energy generation that’s not used by the business during the day is used to charge the solar batteries.
3. Bank extra power on the grid: Once your batteries have been fully charged, extra energy is diverted, recorded and stored on the utility grid for later use by your business.
4. Battery use: During the evening, after the solar generation is subsiding, and when energy consumption and utility costs are high, you will use the energy you stored earlier in your batteries.
5. Take from the grid: After the batteries are timely utilized, you can begin to use any extra energy you banked earlier from the utility grid.
6. Energy cost savings: You save more money on your utility bill each month by using solar with battery storage together and have more control over current and future costs increases.

See how a battery energy storage system saved $179,307 in the first year

Sometimes, you need to see it to believe it. The Mary Pickford theater partnered with Aeterna Energy to design and install a commercial solar and battery system on their roof.

Within the first year, Aeterna Energy lowered the theater’s annual utility expenses by $179,307. Financial modeling shows that in 21 years, this business will have saved almost $5 million in energy costs—operational expenses that the business was able to pocket and increase their bottom-line profits.

This business was dealing with looming higher operational expenses due to:

• Increasing monthly energy bills due to the change in the rates and time of use costs.
• Increasing payroll expenses to $15/hour for businesses with more than 26 employees and increasing for all in California by in 2023.
• Increasing overhead costs due to state code and regulatory mandate changes.

In order to remain profitable and competitive, the Mary Pickford Theater installed solar with battery storage to produce their own energy and store it for later use under their control.

See how commercial solar with battery storage can lower your operational costs

The best way to understand how a battery energy storage system can lower your operational expenses is to conduct a Commercial Energy Analysis with Aeterna Energy.

We’ll carefully assess your energy consumption, building structure, electrical panels, and other information to determine how much you can save by installing commercial solar with battery storage in your business.

Give us a call at (805) 823-3232 or request a Commercial Energy Analysis today.