Living With a Sodium-Ion Home Battery

Everything Electric has returned to Eleven Energy—this time to visit two homeowners who are already living with our latest sodium-ion battery systems.

In the new episode, “The Lithium Alternative That’s Changing Home Energy Storage!”, presenter Robert Llewellyn speaks with Eleven Energy Chief Growth Officer and co-founder Andy Rankin, an installer who chose the system for his own home, and another homeowner who selected sodium-ion technology for its sustainability and long-term performance credentials.

The programme moves beyond laboratory specifications and product demonstrations. Instead, it asks a much more practical question: what is a sodium-ion home battery actually like to own and use?

Watch the full Everything Electric video

Two homes with different energy requirements

The video visits two properties with different layouts, energy requirements and approaches to system design.

At the first home, the owner is also an experienced solar and battery system designer. His property has 29 solar panels producing approximately 15.5 kWp, including panels installed on a shallow north-facing roof.

Because the local electricity network has limited the property’s export to 4.4 kW, simply installing a large solar array would not allow all of its potential generation to be exported at the sunniest point of the day.

The battery provides another option.

By exporting stored energy earlier in the morning, before solar generation reaches its peak, the homeowner can create a longer and flatter export profile. The battery can then recharge as solar generation increases, allowing the property to continue exporting while remaining within its agreed grid limit.

This is a good example of why battery storage is about more than keeping the lights on after sunset. When a system is designed around the customer’s solar generation, consumption, tariff and grid connection, a battery can become an active tool for managing when energy is imported, stored, used and exported.

The system includes three Galvani battery modules (13.5 kWh) and a 12 kW hybrid inverter, supporting both the large solar array and the property’s wider electricity requirements.

At the second home, the system includes 23 solar panels, an 8 kW inverter and three Galvani battery modules.

The homeowner explains that environmental and social considerations were central to the decision. The fact that her installer had already chosen to install an Eleven Energy system in his own home also provided valuable first-hand reassurance.

The batteries were installed in a previously unused space in the utility room. The homeowner describes the system as unobtrusive in everyday life, with its background sound comparable to other household utility equipment.

Why consider sodium-ion for a home battery?

Lithium-ion technology has transformed portable electronics and electric transport. Lithium is a very light element, allowing manufacturers to produce compact batteries with high energy density.

That makes lithium particularly valuable when battery size and weight directly affect a product’s usefulness, such as in a smartphone or electric vehicle.

A stationary home battery has different priorities.

Once a battery has been installed beside a wall, in a garage, in a utility room or outside a property, a modest increase in size or weight is much less significant. Durability, safety, material availability, cold-weather operation and long-term energy management can become more important considerations.

Sodium is one of the most abundant elements on Earth and is widely available in naturally occurring salts. Sodium-ion batteries therefore offer a route to energy storage that is less dependent on lithium and some of the supply-chain pressures associated with conventional battery materials.

The video also presents a balanced view of battery safety. Andy points out that modern lithium iron phosphate home batteries are already extremely safe. Sodium-ion nevertheless offers additional intrinsic safety characteristics that make it particularly attractive for stationary storage.

From rack-mounted batteries to the modular Galvani system

Everything Electric previously visited Eleven Energy when our first-generation sodium-ion battery was entering the market.

That original product used a straightforward rack-mounted format. It allowed us to bring a working sodium-ion home storage system to customers quickly, but installers and homeowners also asked for a cleaner and more flexible design.

The result is Galvani, our modular stackable sodium-ion battery system.

Individual battery modules connect vertically to form a clean, compact stack. A smaller home may need only one or two modules, while a larger property can use three or four modules in a stack. Multiple stacks can also be incorporated into a suitably designed system where greater storage capacity is required.

The modular format allows installers to design storage around the individual property rather than forcing every household into the same fixed battery capacity.

It also makes future expansion easier to consider as a household adds more solar generation, an electric vehicle, a heat pump or other electrical loads.

Learn more about the Galvani stackable sodium-ion battery

Larger solar systems need more powerful inverters

The first Everything Electric feature included one of our 6 kW hybrid inverters. After the system reached the market, installers began asking for higher-powered alternatives.

Residential electricity demand is changing. More households are installing electric vehicles, heat pumps, immersion-heater controls and larger solar arrays. Many are also using time-of-use electricity tariffs that reward customers for shifting imports and exports to different times of day.

To support these applications, Eleven Energy introduced its Mediterranean Sea range of 8 kW, 10 kW and 12 kW single-phase hybrid inverters.

The larger inverter shown in the video allows the first homeowner to manage a substantial solar array, battery storage and household demand through one integrated system.

The second property uses the 8 kW version, demonstrating how the range can be selected to suit different system sizes.

Explore Eleven Energy’s residential inverter range

Smart energy management without constant intervention

Some customers enjoy monitoring every energy flow and creating detailed battery schedules. Others want the system to make those decisions automatically.

Eleven Energy’s energy management platform is designed to support both approaches.

Customers can configure charging and discharging schedules manually, or use intelligent optimisation to help determine when the battery should import, store, use or export energy.

The optimisation system can take account of:

The customer’s electricity tariff
Expected solar generation
Weather forecasts
Previous household consumption
Differences between weekdays and weekends
Periods of lower and higher electricity prices

The video also explains how additional energy monitoring can improve coordination between the battery and other household devices.

For example, when an EV begins charging during a low-cost overnight tariff period, the system can be configured to prevent the home battery from unnecessarily discharging into the car. Excess solar generation can also be directed towards an immersion heater rather than being curtailed or exported at an unattractive rate.

Over time, closer integration between solar generation, battery storage, electric vehicles, hot-water systems and heat pumps will become increasingly important.

The objective is not to give homeowners another device that needs constant attention. It is to create a system that quietly manages energy in the background while still giving more technically engaged users detailed control.

What does long-term cycling tell us?

Battery longevity is an understandable concern for homeowners who expect their system to charge and discharge regularly.

During the video, the first homeowner discusses long-term testing in which sodium-ion batteries were put through more than 13,000 charge and discharge cycles while retaining approximately 85% of their original capacity.

In simple cycle-count terms, 13,000 cycles would represent more than 35 years of one cycle per day.

Laboratory cycle testing is not the same as predicting an exact calendar lifespan in a home. Real-world battery life is also affected by temperature, operating conditions, charge rates and other factors. Nevertheless, the result demonstrates the strong cycling durability that makes sodium-ion chemistry attractive for frequently used stationary storage.

For homeowners using dynamic tariffs, a battery may cycle more than once on some days. High cycle durability can therefore become particularly valuable as batteries move beyond simple solar self-consumption and begin participating more actively in household and grid energy management.

Hearing directly from homeowners

Technical specifications are important, but they do not fully explain why someone chooses one battery system over another.

One homeowner in the video was attracted by sodium-ion’s environmental credentials, longevity and suitability for stationary storage. His experience as an installer also meant he wanted to understand the system first-hand before recommending it to customers.

At the second property, sustainability and the wider social impact of battery materials were important considerations. The homeowner also valued knowing that her installer had already selected the same technology for his own home.

Their systems are different, but their conclusions are similar: both households are pleased with the technology, the installation and the way the system has integrated into everyday life.

A useful resource for homeowners and installers

The Everything Electric episode provides a practical introduction for anyone considering solar and battery storage.

For homeowners, it explains the differences between sodium-ion and lithium-ion without presenting the two chemistries as mutually exclusive. It also shows why system design, inverter capacity, electricity tariffs and software can be just as important as the battery itself.

For installers, it provides a customer-facing explanation of many of the questions that arise during consultations:

Why choose sodium-ion?
How much battery capacity does a home need?
Can the system accommodate a large solar array?
How does it work with an EV or heat pump?
Can it respond to smart tariffs?
What happens in cold weather?
Can it be installed inside or outside?
What is it like to live with?

The best home energy system is not simply the one with the largest battery. It is the system designed around the property, the customer’s lifestyle, the local grid connection and the way electricity will be generated and used.