
But one of Savant Systems' newest innovations in the smart energy space is its Power Storage 20 battery. It's not just a battery that stashes energy away for later. The Power Storage 20 is part of an intelligent smart energy ecosystem, giving you more control of your energy usage, helping you save money on electricity costs and making sure you still have power during an outage.
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"What we're really trying to do is to enable customers to have intelligent control over their power and have the ability to power every aspect of their home, regardless of what's going on externally," Dylan Rup, a senior project manager of energy storage systems at Savant Systems, told CNET.
We did not conduct any hands-on testing for this review. Batteries are part of a complex home energy system that varies between households. Instead, this review is based on publicly available information online from Savant Systems and interviews with Rup and Nicole Madonna, vice president of product management for power at Savant Systems. The interview was conducted at RE+ 2023, a renewable energy trade show.
You're getting a lot of good stuff with the Power Storage 20: 18.5 kWh of usable capacity, an impressive continuous 12.5 kW power output and above-average system efficiency. The battery also comes with a 10-year warranty and helpful smart energy capabilities. The system itself is also narrow, meaning it won't take up too much space in your garage.
You can install the Power Storage 20 without solar panels as a standalone power source, but this system is better equipped to help you if you have solar. Here's a quick look at some specs.
The Savant Power Storage 20 system is made up of three main components: the battery modules, inverter and power director. Let's start with the battery modules.
The Power Storage 20 features a modular design, so the actual "battery" part of the Power Storage 20 is actually a bunch of smaller batteries installed together inside an enclosure. There are eight battery modules in total. Each module holds up to 2.5 kWh of energy and can be easily slid in and out of the main enclosure. It's almost like pulling out a drawer in a dresser or a filing cabinet.
One of the biggest benefits of a modular battery design is that it's typically easier to install. Lifting a small 2.5 kWh battery is a lot easier than lifting a giant 20 kWh battery. All the modules also come with pre-wired connections.
"For the actual [energy storage system], you can do it in less than an hour, and that was with one individual," Rup said. "Because every single component is 100 pounds or less."
The inverter sits at the top of the system, right on top of the battery modules. It's a 12.5 kW inverter, so it's plenty capable of handling more intense loads, like your electric vehicle or HVAC. But the inverter's main job is to take the DC electricity that your solar panels generate and turn it into AC electricity that your home can use.
The last component is the power director. This is a little box that sits on the wall next to the main battery system. The power director functions as a sort of middleman between the battery and your house. It runs energy management software, interfaces with the app to connect it with the rest of the system and communicates with any smart energy circuits you have.
Capacity is one of the easier specs to understand in the world of energy storage. Your battery's capacity is the amount of energy (usually measured in kWh) that you can stash away in your battery. There are two types of capacity measurements to watch out for: maximum and usable.
Maximum capacity is the absolute maximum amount of energy your battery can hold, while usable capacity is the amount of energy you're actually able to use from your battery's maximum capacity. The Savant Power Storage 20 has a rated maximum capacity of 20 kWh and a usable capacity of 18.5 kWh. If you're after a lot of energy storage, this could be an option for you.
When reviewing batteries, we also look at how modular they are. Batteries with a modular design feature a bunch of smaller batteries connected to one another and, usually, placed inside an enclosure. Modular batteries are typically easier to install, but the biggest advantage is more freedom to choose a capacity that's "just right" for your home's energy needs. And if you still have room for more small battery modules in the enclosure, you'll be able to upgrade your battery's capacity without having to buy another large battery unit.
The Power Storage 20 is made up of eight small 2.5 kWh batteries. And while this technically means the Power Storage 20 is modular, it's really by design only. The Power Storage 20 doesn't offer multiple capacity options on a single unit - you get 18.5 kWh of usable capacity per Power Storage 20 unit.
"Right now you need all eight [batteries] for the system to operate," Madonna said. "But we are looking at bringing flexibility so that you can go 'half-populated' for a lower price point, and have more options."
There are more wins in the Savant Power Storage 20's performance than losses. Let's start with its round-trip efficiency, a measure of how much energy actually makes it to storage without getting lost. The Storage 20 has a round-trip efficiency rating of 93.8%. The average round-trip efficiency for lithium-ion based home batteries is around 90%, so the Storage 20 doesn't do too bad in the efficiency department.
An area where the Storage 20 does even better, however, is power output. The higher your continuous power output, the more of your home you'll be able to keep up and running during an outage. The Storage 20 has an incredibly high continuous power output, at 12.5 kW. This makes the Storage 20 one of the most powerful residential batteries we've ever seen.
"Our desire to be able to deliver whole-home backup, and having that high power output was definitely one of the key considerations for these solutions for us," Rup said.
Depth of discharge is the amount of energy you're actually able to use from your battery, relative to its maximum capacity. Or in other words, the amount of energy you can safely discharge from your battery without causing damage to the battery. The average depth of discharge we've seen falls around about 95%. The Storage 20's depth of discharge is a bit lower than average, at 90%.
In terms of warranty, the Storage 20 is fairly average. The battery is covered for 10 years, which is standard. And the Storage 20's cycle life is fairly standard as well, but there are other manufacturers that guarantee a longer cycle life. There are plenty of other batteries on the market that cover a larger cycle count. But the end-of-warranty capacity guarantee you get with the Storage 20 is a little higher than the 70% industry standard, which is nice to see.
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