What seems like an unusual solution actually highlights one of Europe's biggest energy challenges: renewable energy cannot be produced on demand. If you want to use it even when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing, you need to store it. And for now, Europe doesn't have enough storage capacity to ensure reliable power supply.
The European Commission acknowledges this in its freshly released Electrification Action Plan. The EU is raising its storage ambitions from around 55 GW today to 200 GW by 2030 which is roughly enough to match the bloc's electricity demand during periods of low consumption. Individual households can contribute to this goal, while saving on their electricity bills and becoming more resilient to energy crises.
So what can you do if you have solar panels on your rooftop or balcony and you'd like to store your electricity for later use? Here are a few ideas!
A stationary battery
“For many households with rooftop solar, a well-sized residential battery is increasingly one of the most effective ways to maximise the economic value of the electricity they produce,” Alberto Gasparato from Energy Storage Europe, told us.
The logic is simple: you store spare electricity when production is at its peak so that you can use it later, and avoid buying expensive power from the grid.
The most popular battery technology is lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP). Around 90% of deployed batteries for electricity storage use this technology, according to last year's data. An alternative sodium-based battery is less efficient, and therefore takes up more space.
The price of an 8 kWh home battery, which can power an average household for roughly a day, ranges typically between €5000 and €8,000. This option is getting cheaper thanks to technological progress and growing demand: the price has already dropped by 45% in just one year.
It can take between eight to 20 years to start seeing a return on investment depending on how electrified a household is as well as its electricity contract, according to Bebat, a Belgian NGO specialising in battery recycling.
Using your electric car for storage
This can help you reduce your electricity bills during peak hours, when power is most expensive and solar panels don't generate enough to cover your household's demand. However, using your car battery for this on a daily basis wears it out faster and does not pay off economically in most cases.
Still, an EV can be a handy occasional power source when extremely high electricity prices kick in, or an emergency backup – like in Spain last year.
Room for more
Nearly 5.4 million European households have installed solar-powered battery storage systems since 2020, with more than 1.5 million added in 2025 alone, Eurelectric told us.
However, the distribution is unequal across the continent, with Germany leading with more than 2 million installed home battery systems, according to Gasparato.
“[W]ith more than 12 million solar homes without energy storage, there is considerable potential for retrofit installations,” he said.
Recent energy shocks, like Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the US-Israel war on Iran, have increased European households' interest in home storage solutions that could shield them against volatile prices.