Despite the hype about solar battery storage, any honest solar installer will give you the same advice: Batteries will not pay for themselves EVER!.
At the moment, a Tesla Powerwall battery system will cost you at $7,000 to $8,200 to install, and will take 10 years to pay back at best. The unit is warranted to last 10 years. You do the maths.
A solar panel system will pay for itself in seven years and one month in California, and is warranted for 25 years. You have almost an 18 year margin of safety to get your money back. If the system requires repairs or maintenance you will have saved enough from lower electricity bills to cover these costs. There is no margin for error with a battery.
Unfortunately, all the hype in the mainstream media about batteries has made people question the viability of solar without batteries - to the extent that people are waiting for 'affordable batteries' before they invest in solar.
But even though the cost of solar battery storage is projected to decline year-over-year, it makes no sense to wait to get solar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbtQntSqG4g
Every day you don't have solar is another day you do have to pay high electricity bills. A well designed solar system without batteries can give you tiny bills.
Waiting 2, 3 or 4 years for batteries to become affordable means another 2, 3 or 4 years of high bills. One day, batteries will make lots of sense - and when that day comes they can easily be added to any existing solar system using a method called AC coupling.
So don't lose years of savings waiting for cheap batteries to arrive.
Consider going solar now - with the knowledge that you can easily retrofit batteries later when they will pay for themselves - not before.
