Eventually I got tired of watching my electricity meter spin fastest between 4pm and 9pm, so I installed a deye 5kw hybrid inverter with a 10kWh lithium battery beside my existing rooftop solar panels.

The installation itself was less dramatic than I expected. My installer mounted the inverter in the garage, added a battery isolator, and connected the system to my single-phase supply. The first evening felt oddly satisfying: after dinner, I could see the battery discharging while the house quietly ran on stored solar energy. It was a small thing, but switching on lights and the dishwasher without immediately buying grid power felt tangible.

The biggest difference has been peak-hour usage. Before the battery, our electric bill jumped whenever we cooked dinner, ran the heat-pump dryer, or charged the car after sunset. Now the battery fills around midday, then covers those evening loads automatically. During sunny months, my daily grid import often drops to zero after 5pm. My last bill was about 30% lower than the period last year, despite using more power at home. That saving matters more to me than impressive app graphs.

There was one scare during a week of heavy rain. The battery stopped discharging overnight and showed a warning in the monitoring app. I checked the isolator and found it had tripped after a brief outage. Resetting it brought everything back within a minute, although I asked the installer to inspect the settings. Since then, it has behaved normally.

I still watch the state-of-charge before cloudy days and avoid running several high-load appliances together at night. That bit of planning makes the solar battery feel practical rather than futuristic.