Will plug-in solar plus batteries solve your power problem? I did the math

EcoFlow showing off its new in-home battery systems.

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Last week, I traveled to London to see some new products EcoFlow is releasing now that plug-in solar is set to become legal here in the UK. But what struck me was how I feel that pure plug-in solar has already been superseded by hybrid systems offering greater potential for savings.

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Don't get me wrong, I still think there's a place for pure plug-in solar systems where you take solar panels, hook them up to a microinverter, and feed that power into your system to handle some of the energy usage during the day.

The problem, in a nutshell, is a mismatch between household energy use and peak solar energy generation. The average household's power usage peaks twice a day, morning and evening, with a trough between the two. This trough, rather annoyingly, coincides with the single solar energy-harvesting curve, which peaks at midday, a time when most people are out of the house.

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Those of us who work from home or outside traditional hours will win in this scenario because we're there to make maximum use of the power, but for the majority who go to and from work humming Dolly Parton's "9 to 5," this isn't the optimal setup.

A microinverter does the job of connecting solar panels to an AC outlet.

Sure, solar can carry a fair amount of that daily base load, and it's a step in the right direction when it comes to energy independence, especially if you live in sunnier parts of the country. ( Note : Base load is the stuff that's always on -- refrigerator, Wi-Fi router, chargers, and appliances left on standby.)

However, there's a limit to solar's effectiveness. The allowable size of a plug-in solar setup -- 800W for Utah and in European countries where it's allowed, up to 1,920W in Colorado -- isn't much, and even under perfect conditions, won't be enough to give you energy independence. Not by a long shot.

Ideally, people want a way to capture that power during the day, when it's abundant, and time-shift it to times of day when it's needed.

And those batteries can not only store solar power but also be charged from an outlet. In fact, if you have a time-of-use (TOU) or time-of-day (TOD) power tariff where electricity costs less during specific periods, you don't need solar panels.