Home Builder and Battery Maker to Equip Communities with Solar Home Batteries

Mandalay Homes is partnering with Sonnen GmbH to create a first-of-its-kind housing community in Prescott, Arizona; 3,000 new homes with rooftop solar installations will be outfitted with batteries to store the excess energy. The batteries can cost between $10,000 and $20,000, which would be included in the home's sale price and tied to the mortgage.

Reuters reports that while utility companies have not bought into the project, homeowners would still save money by purchasing limited power from the grid, if any. Mandalay Homes and Sonnen want utilities to pay homeowners to use the stored power, creating a virtual power plant with 8 megawatt hours of electricity.

The community would be the first of its kind in the United States, the companies said, and comes as utilities have been studying the potential benefits of integrating battery storage along distribution grids and decreasing reliance on centralized fossil fuel plants. Sonnen has several such communities in Germany, but the idea is still a novelty in the United States.

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