BYD Battery: An Independent Review by Solar Choice

Note: Solar Choice is not affiliated with BYD or any other battery manufacturer, so our reviews reflect an unbiased assessment of information on their products.

Overview of BYD – Company History

BYD Co Ltd was founded in 1995 in Shenzen, China, and is a manufacturer of automobiles, battery-powered bicycles, buses, forklifts, solar panels, rechargeable batteries (varied inc. bulk-storage from renewable energy) and trucks. After more than 20 years of fast growth, the company has established more than 30 industrial parks worldwide and has played a significant role in terms of development from energy generation and storage to its applications. BYD is listed on the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, with revenue and market capitalization each exceeding RMB 100 billion. The company employees over 220,000 people at sites all around the world.

BYD is the world’s leading producer of rechargeable batteries: NiMH batteries, Lithium-ion batteries, and NCM batteries. BYD owns the complete supply chain layout from mineral battery cells to battery packs. These batteries have a wide variety of uses including consumer electronics, new energy vehicles, and energy storage.

Despite their size, many people have not heard of BYD especially as it gets quite overshadowed by Mr. Elon Musk and their US competitor, Tesla. Although it should be noted that not only to BYD produce many more batteries than Tesla but also did produce more electric cars right up until late 2019.

Furthermore, Warren Buffet is also a backer of BYD, and they also been busy building electric buses in Australia!

Where are BYD batteries manufactured?

Currently, all BYD batteries are manufactured in China.

BYD Battery Range and Options

The B-Box comes in high voltage (HV) and low voltage (LV) – with the B-Box LV Residential the most popular energy storage device BYD sells.

It comes in four different sizes – 2.56kWh (2.45kWh usable), 5.12kWh (4.9kWh usable), 7.68kWh (7.35kWh usable), and 10.24kWh (9.8kWh usable). All four variants are IP55 rated and modular – meaning depending on the case you purchase you will be able to start small and upgrade if need be. You can get a total capacity of 57.5kWh which would work for light commercial usage.

How Much Does a BYD Solar Battery Cost?

BYD batteries are considered to have some of the sharpest prices in the market. Battery-Box Pro consists of the battery modules B-Plus L 2.5 with 2.56 kWh usable capacity each. Up to 4 B-Plus modules can fit into one cabinet.

Batter-Box Pro 13.8 has a usable capacity of 13.8 kWh per battery rack. Please note that the below pricing does not include installation costs:

Whether a BYD Solar Battery is a cost-effective product for your system will depend on a closer examination of your electricity needs. To see if home solar battery storage is worth it, our detailed Solar Battery Sizing and Payback calculator to see the financials for your system

Battery government rebate schemes across Australia

Currently there is no federal rebate for battery storage. Victoria, South Australia and the ACT have launched their own schemes that are now closed.

The main battery scheme currently available is Queensland’s Home Battery Booster rebate. The NSW Government have also introduced a scheme that will be available late 2024.

Read more product reviews from Solar Choice

BYD B-Box LV Residential Limitations

 The main con for the BYD Battery Box is that they are quite large and clunky, making the battery system seem a bit obtrusive. The optimal temperature range also makes the B-box a less-than-ideal option for extreme climates.

They will also need a compatible hybrid inverter to work. There are several compatible converters currently including SMA, GoodWe, SolaX, and Victron. The correct inverter will allow DC coupling to solar and backup power during blackouts.  It can also be AC coupled, although this makes backup a lot more complex.

BYD’s Warranty Offer For Australian Customers

BYD supplies a 10 year warranty for their batteries which covers defects in materials or workmanship. This is commonly referred to as a ‘product warranty‘ in the solar industry.

They also provide a ‘performance warranty‘ which guarantees that their battery will still retain 60% of its nameplate usable energy after 10 years or if it throughputs a minimum amount of energy (whichever comes first). The minimum through-put in their warranty document works out to be around 3 MWh per kWh of usable energy, which would give you approximately one full cycle per day for 8 years.

In general this warranty is pretty typical of what we see offered from Chinese battery manufacturers, while some guarantee a higher percentage of retained usable energy after 10 years.

BYD have a local office in Australia to support customers seeking assistance, which is a important. Without a local office and support staff, customers can be stranded trying to contact overseas manufacturers when things go wrong.

See BYD’s full warranty document here.

Conclusions – Are BYD Batteries Good Quality?

BYD are now best known for their electric vehicles, however they have been building solar batteries for a very long time. They have a great flexible range from as small as 4.0kWh upwards for smaller systems. The ability to stack the low voltage solutions all the way to 983kWh before you reach the “cap”. This means their batteries can cater to all scale residential project and mid-scale commercial projects.

BYD offers a cost-effective and flexible solution from a large reputable manufacturer and as batteries become more and more popular, they look set to further increase their presence throughout Australia.

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Ryan Xiao

Ryan is a graduate of the esteemed Photovoltaics Masters program at the UNSW and has a bachelor degree in Automotive Engineering. He has developed solar and battery business cases for 100s of Australian companies across large variety of use cases and has a detailed knowledge of the solar products available on the market.

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