Energy storage system (ESS) is widely recognized as a key part for the solar industry to be further improved. SMA, the world’s leader in solar inverters, has partnered with South Korean company, LG Chem, to develop high-efficiency solar-integrated ESS solutions, which are focusing on residential solar systems. By using these solutions, the customers can save their electricity bills by at most 80%.

The new storage solution comprises SMA’s Sunny Boy Storage 2.5 battery inverter and LG Chem’s RESU 10H and 7H storage units, creating two high-voltage storage solution with 7kWh and 10kWh storage capacities, respectively.

The new solutions are highly flexible and easily to install. They will start storing electricity as soon as completing the installations, and they are scalable by interconnecting more of them.

A low-voltage storage solution user can simply swap SMA’s Sunny Boy with Sunny Island for fulfill his/her need.

“Photovoltaic power is less expensive than the electricity rate charged by regional utility companies in many European countries for private households,” said SMA Chief Executive Officer Pierre-Pascal Urbon. “Private households want to leverage their investment in a photovoltaic system by investing in storage systems. The new and future-proof solution from SMA and LG Chem is tailored for use with existing and new residential photovoltaic systems. By using the new SMA / LG Chem package, private households can reduce their electricity bill by more than 80% and decouple from the trend of rising electricity prices.

“LG Chem and SMA have been working together since we introduced our first residential energy storage system in Germany in 2012,” said Sung Hoon Jang, Ph.D, Senior Vice President of LG Chem and Head of ESS Battery Division. “The combination of RESU 400V lineup storage integrated with Sunny Boy Storage will have a great impact in the European and Australian residential storage market.”

Both SMA’s Sunny Boy and LG Chem’s RESU series were winners of the EES Award at this year’s Intersolar Europe tradeshow. Going forward, the two manufacturers are planning to expand the focus of their collaboration on utility-scale storage solutions with the SMA Sunny Central Storage battery inverter.