It seems unbelievable that a country like Spain, which is the envy of its neighbors in terms of potential for renewable energy, has problems producing its own energy. During the last few years, the price of electricity has been a constant theme in the news and in everyday conversations. The storms and gas supply cuts by Algeria and Russia have once again highlighted the shortcomings of our energy system, which has had to feed on the burning of fossil fuels such as oil or coal, producing records never before seen on the electricity bill. More and more Spaniards are encouraged to install solar panels in their homes, because by making calculations, they see the investment profitable in a period of approximately eight years. However, there are users who not only have had photovoltaic panels for a long time, but also anticipated the energy crisis riding their own PowerWall.
What is a Power Wall?
Un PowerWall It is nothing more than a domestic battery that is designed to store energy obtained through solar energy or from the electrical network itself. So, if you have photovoltaic solar panels, you will be able to capture energy and store it to use it later, avoiding having to use the traditional electrical network service. With a PowerWall, you will own your own supply. You can even unsubscribe from your electricity company if you have equipment powerful enough to use the energy from your batteries for a long time, such as a week in which there is a storm and you can barely capture energy from the Sun.
The concept of PowerWall is not new, obviously. Tesla itself has offered a model in its catalog since 2015, a model that is currently in its second generation and that many American consumers are adopting to save on their electricity bills and complement the charging of their electric vehicles. It is expected that these types of products will become more widespread in the coming years, but today we will focus on those equipment that we can manufacture ourselves if we have the right knowledge.
How to create your own homemade PowerWall
And then YouTube came along. Or, rather, Joan Olaria. Joan is a YouTube user who has a very interesting channel in which she shows her creations and crafts with different tools, but it seems that her content has evolved in the last year towards research and installation of solar panels. photovoltaic.
Determined to set up a solar energy system, he chose to buy an inverter and some solar panels to start not depending so much on the traditional electricity grid and thus save on the monthly bill. But as he himself explains, the whole solar theme hooked him like a drug, and with the help of other advanced youtubers on the subject, he decided to continue evolving his installation and take the leap to the next level: the PowerWall.
With a series of tremendously instructive and highly entertaining videos, Joan explains step by step and in great detail how she has designed and built her own PowerWall, a high-capacity homemade battery made up of salvaged second-hand lithium batteries, a fairly large market. It is interesting that, in addition to encouraging recycling, it allows batteries to be created at a much more affordable price than buying a completely new battery.
These batteries have normally lost a small percentage of their capacity, but they are ideal for combining them in large groups with the idea of accumulating energy for a home electrical installation. The origin of these batteries are usually laptops, electric scooters and other electronic devices that have lost power and are recycled, hence internal batteries can have a second chance in this type of project.
More details to consider
Self-consumption of energy has been causing a lot of talk in recent years, especially now that there are supply problems and we have serious problems with the supply of natural gas. Joan Olaria's drum kit is a success story, precisely because it is a homemade solution. However, more and more Spaniards are investing their money to create and maintain their own energy. What else is there to keep in mind before embarking on a project like this?
- Determine the type of housing: depending on the type of construction, the distribution of the spaces and the orientation of the property, it will be advisable to opt for one solution and another.
- Calculate energy consumption: This forecast is made in two parts. On the one hand, electricity consumption without taking into account the cost of heating or cooling. On the other hand, a table is established in which the necessary power to heat or cool the property is estimated based on energy efficiency. In most cases, it is convenient to separate the air conditioning from the Powerwall and use a heat pump system or even underfloor heating.
- Panel location: this depends on the orography of the land where the installation is going to be made, the number of hours of light per year and the radiation.
- Team: The ideal is to make an installation isolated from the electrical network, but in many cases, it is not totally possible.
Is this process safe?
The entire system that Joan Olaria has created has been running for a few years. In fact, the youtuber has posted several updates explaining how you scale up your PowerWall and what modifications you would make if you were to start from scratch. However, we all often have the question of whether is it safe or not do our own battery installation at home.
Obviously, it's all a matter of common sense and experience. As we can see in the videos, Joan Olaria has his installation in a town, with some margin from other domestic units, with plenty of space both to install his solar panels and to install his batteries and maintain good ventilation. It is obvious that nothing is infallible in this world, and that the electrical installation could catch fire in the same way that any electric vehicle or mobile phone with a faulty battery can catch fire. Like everything, practice makes perfect. Trying to build your own PowerWall with hardly any knowledge is a very risky operation that you should avoid. But if you know about electricity or have a friend or relative who knows how to understand every video of Joan in detail, the project is totally possible, as long as security measures are prioritized to avoid a catastrophe.
It is profitable?
Probably the most profitable method would be to have photovoltaic solar panels for immediate energy consumption and sell the remaining energy to the electric company, but if you are a user who is very interested in this type of renewable energy and you want to completely disassociate yourself from the electricity company (practically you can if the installation is as good as Joan's), the energy accumulator is an excellent option.
The safest and least hassle-free option is to go for a commercial storage tank such as Tesla's original Powerwall, but if you're up for it and you're a romantic like Joan, creating your own PowerWall could be an incredible project that be able to complete one day. In this video that you have just above, offers a more advanced alternative which, in his words, "will allow you great energy independence and considerable electricity savings" since we will not be subject to the "price whims of the marketers" and reduces the design of the first model that was launched in January 2021. So it is cheaper to manufacture.
Furthermore, It is perfect to avoid problems with hypothetical blackouts and cuts in the supply, which with the current times is not a bad decision. On paper, in addition, in the future we could obtain a return on the energy surplus that we generate to further lower the cost of the bill.
Remember that Joan Olaria's channel has many instructional videos with which to get started in terms of installation and assembly of this type of system, although obviously some knowledge of electricity is required to be able to carry it out. We invite you to take a look at him because his work is amazing.
Joan Olaria channelIs there a less risky alternative?
We know what you're thinking. Joan Olaria's invention has turned out well because he is an expert in the field and has spent a lot of time perfecting his installation. But... Is there any way to get something similar without making life so complicated?
Well, you should know that there is some alternative or other that can lend you a hand in this situation. Many Spaniards have ever tried to buy Tesla's battery in another country and import it into Spain. However, there are solutions that are currently available in our territory such as batteries LG Chem RESU.
Obviously, this will only work for you if you have already made a good investment in electrical panels. Therefore, embark on this adventure only if you have already done the first step or if you already have the entire plan of how your installation will work independent of the electrical network. Another brand that is also quite well known as alternative to Tesla's Powerwall They are BYD batteries, which are sold in various formats to adapt to numerous situations.
Excellent Carlos, what a great article.