As a former solar sales rep, one of the biggest challenges I faced was properly showing the added value of battery storage to my homeowners.
When discussing battery storage with customers, the obvious benefit they think of is emergency backup, but with the concept being so abstract it’s hard to contextualize the true dollar value. How often do they lose power? What’s the value of all the food in your fridge? What value do you put on being able to run medical equipment, lights, or appliances in an outage?
These questions often lead to using fear tactics to sell batteries – fear of the unknown and needing to protect yourself. While backup is a core benefit, driving sales through fear isn’t a solid business practice for any sales rep looking to educate and build trust with their customers
Customers today are more educated than ever and want to see the direct benefit they will receive from their investment. The solution is simple: Stop complicating your battery sales; approach battery conversations the same way we approach solar conversations, with solutions to problems backed by data.
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The Solar Sales Approach
It’s no surprise that as an industry we’ve become really good at selling solar. While residential solar growth in 2024 has slowed due to several economic factors, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) notes that over the last decade the total number of residential solar installations have increased by over 900%.
Along with steadily decreasing equipment costs, solar sales reps have learned how to determine a customer’s main buying motivations and tailor a system to exceed those needs. When it comes to purchasing a solar system, some of the main customer motivations include:
- Energy Savings
- Peace of Mind
- Independence and Self Sufficiency
Energy Savings
Talk to anyone who has sold solar before and they will tell you that mainly customers want to go solar to save money. They heard from a friend or saw an ad saying they could cut money from their skyrocketing electric bill.
So how did reps adapt to this motivation? Many solar reps start off their conversations by “beating up the bill” and walking homeowners through their electric bill to drive home how much energy costs. They then show the solar solution and its cost relative to what the homeowner is paying for electricity today. For cash or finance deals, solar reps point toward incentives and can show a return on investment as money is saved.
Peace of Mind
Homeowners want to know that there are reasonable protections in place for something they are paying a lot of money for and is supposed to be on their roof for 30+ years. Warranty conversations are a key piece of ownership solar conversations to calm customer worries.
Successful solar reps and companies make sure to highlight the quality of their equipment and the manufacturer’s longevity. The truly elite reps include high-quality insurance backed warranties like SI-30 Solar and SI-30 Total from Solar Insure to give customers even further protections against insolvency and costly labor repairs.
Independence and Self Sufficiency
I couldn’t count the number of times homeowners used to say they “don’t want to worry about the electric grid”. Grid prices are always increasing and in certain areas of the country blackouts are common.
Solar proposals will show the longevity of equipment and forecasted energy production to excite homeowners at the possibility of taking control over their energy production. Batteries fit in perfectly with this conversation.
How Do We Apply This to Batteries?
What works about the solar sales model is that for every customer motivation there is data and numbers that can be shown to prove the solutions viability. So why not take this same approach with battery conversations?
Independence, self sufficiency, and peace of mind are easy values to add with batteries. Adding a battery onto your system will allow you to store excess energy to be used later so you are more independent of grid price fluctuations. Batteries also come with warranties that guarantee their capacity for a certain period of time, and solar reps who include SI-30 Total from Solar Insure give their homeowners the longest warranty available with one battery replacement.
Energy savings is the main benefit for the solar pitch and can be for batteries as well, as long as we know what to calculate and can explain why it’s important.
Battery Added Value Calculation
When calculating the added value of a battery, it’s important to note that the calculation only applies for utilities who do not give full retail net metering credit, which is a large portion of utilities today. There are still some areas that give full retail rate metering and if that’s your case added value calculations are more complicated due to time of use pricing. Trying to determine how much energy may be stored or sent to the grid during certain times of the day gets complicated fast.
For the larger portion of utilities who do not offer 1:1 net metering, calculating the added value of a battery is fairly simple. We know that excess solar generation would be worth fractions of the retail value if sent back out to the grid, so the value of energy stored in the battery and discharged to the house later is the retail electric rate. Electric rate averages make the calculation easier, but if you want to dive into the weeds you can also play with energy prices throughout the day.
For example let’s say the average electric rate for an area is $0.16/kWh. If a battery has a usable capacity of 13.5 kWh, and we assume the full capacity will charge and discharge to the home each day, it’s fair to assume a daily value to the home of $2.16. Over the course of a whole year, that’s $788.40 of value provided to the home. If that energy was sent to the grid instead of a battery, the value would be significantly less.
13.5 kWh * $0.16/kWh * 365 days = $788.40
The value calculation becomes even more powerful in areas with high electric rates. Being able to tell this homeowner “you will retain almost $800 per year by adding this battery as opposed to sending that power to the grid for pennies” provides homeowners with confidence that the additional investment is actually providing returns.
One objection you may receive here is “that doesn’t seem like much money for such a large investment”. Much like solar where homeowners are recommended to look at longer term numbers, the long term tells a different story. See the full calculation here:
Above you can see that once the numbers are expanded for a 30 year lifetime, our example battery would retain almost $17,000 in value for the home. This calculation takes into account a 2% annual utility escalation and 3% drop of battery capacity to match typical battery warranties.
Posing the number this way, one could show a homeowner that the battery investment would save them more money than the unit would cost on the front end.
The Battery Package Value Add
As you can see, by changing the conversation to focus on value added to the home it positions your battery sale as tangible rather than abstract. Sales reps can prove to homeowners that there is value in battery storage beyond just emergency backup and then use emergency backup and peace of mind as the cherry on top.
Wrapping up the battery conversation with a discussion about Solar Insure’s SI-30 Total insurance backed warranty also adds immense value to the homeowner. Not only have you shown them real dollar savings, but with SI-30 Total they are also protected from labor costs, manufacturer insolvency, and triple the warranty coverage on their most costly component.
The SI-30 Total Advantage
Speaking of SI-30 Total, it is one of the most powerful and impactful products that exists for your homeowners. By including SI-30 Total on your solar + battery projects your homeowners get:
- 30 year coverage on solar and battery equipment
- Labor cost coverage for warrantied repairs
- Protection from manufacturer or installer insolvency
- One battery replacement between years 11-30 when capacity falls below 50%
Battery replacement is a key benefit of SI-30 Total. Battery warranties typically state a minimum capacity of 70% at the end of 10 years and since we know the battery will only continue to degrade, SI-30 Total provides a unique opportunity to get a new battery instead of holding onto an old, less useful one.
In the above example, adding in the value of a replacement battery once capacity drops below 50% means the 30 year lifetime value increases by over 50%.
Stop overcomplicating your battery sales. Focus on providing and proving true value to homeowners through real dollar savings and the unmatched protection of SI-30 Total.
For more on SI-30 Total, follow the link here.
To download a copy of the calculator used above, click here.
