Eguana Evolve home battery: The complete review

Eguana is a 20-year-old battery company based out of Alberta. Their battery systems use the same reliable cores as LG Chem's RESU line, so you know you're getting tested quality and performance reliability in a home battery. One of their more recent products, the Eguana Evolve, is becoming an increasingly popular addition to solar panel systems across the country.

This is an unbiased review: EnergySage is not paid to review brands or products, nor do we earn money from affiliate advertising in this article. The content of this blog is based on research and information available at the time of writing. Learn more about our mission and how we make money as a company.

The Eguana Evolve pairs well with solar panel systems, especially if your utility has reduced or removed net metering, introduced time-of-use rates, or instituted demand charges. Installing a storage solution like the Eguana Evolve with a solar energy system allows you to maintain a sustained power supply during the day or night as long as you store enough power from your solar panels when the sun is shining.

As with many other home battery products, the Eguana Evolve is sized for day-to-day use at your home and is primarily designed to be paired with a solar panel system. When your solar panels produce more electricity than you can use in your home, you can store the excess electricity in the battery system instead of sending it back into the grid. Later, when your panels aren't producing enough electricity to meet your home's needs, you can use the stored energy in your battery instead of having to buy it from your utility company.

Eguana advertises their Evolve battery model as a "fully automated home energy storage solution that maximizes the value of a homeowner's solar system investment." The battery system uses LG Chem's battery module technology under the hood, so you know they're using a proven hardware solution to store and discharge electricity.

Alongside the Evolve, Eguana offers the Evolve Hub, an energy management controller that integrates storage with an existing solar array on your property. With the Hub, you can access Eguana's energy monitoring system online, straight from your laptop or mobile phone. The interface provides minute-by-minute production data, usage summaries, and a link to your PV monitoring system, among other features.

When evaluating the Evolve, there are various important metrics and technical specifications to keep in mind. Among the most important are the size of the battery (power and capacity), its depth of discharge, and roundtrip efficiency. First, let's talk about a unique feature of the Evolve battery line: multiple available chemistries.

Chemistry

Eguana actually offers two versions of the Evolve battery: the Evolve LFP and the Evolve ESS. The difference? The LFP is a lithium iron phosphate battery, while the ESS is a lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide battery. You can read more about the key differences between lithium-ion battery types, but at a high level, this won't make too much of a difference for the average homeowner.

Size

The Eguana Evolve comes in one size per chemistry option that can be stacked in a modular system. Two important metrics to keep in mind when comparing the Evolve to other home storage options are power and usable capacity. Power (measured in kilowatts, or kW) determines the maximum amount of electricity that can be output at a single time, while usable capacity (measured in kilowatt-hours, or kWh) is a measure of the maximum amount of electricity stored in your battery on a full charge. The Evolve boasts a maximum power rating of 5 kW to go along with 13 kWh of usable capacity with the ESS and 14 kWh with the LFP. In a stacked system, the ESS can get up to 38 kWh of total storage, and the LFP can get up to 28 kWh.

As mentioned above, the Evolve system is modular, meaning that you can add multiple battery products to your storage setup. For example, you might want to install multiple Evolve batteries for a home with high energy demands. Eguana's Evolve spec sheet indicates that you can connect up to three Evolves in one system, so you may need to upgrade your supporting hardware to add even more storage capacity beyond the stored energy of three batteries.

You can think of your battery like water running through a pipe. The usable energy capacity is the amount of water available to push through the pipe, while power is the size of the pipe itself. Larger pipes allow more water to flow through at once, which depletes the water faster. Similarly, a battery with a high power rating can deliver more electricity at one time but will burn through its available energy capacity faster too.

A battery's power determines the number of appliances you can run from the battery concurrently, while usable capacity determines how long those appliances can be run. Batteries with a higher power rating are capable of powering more, bigger appliances (i.e., your HVAC system) or many appliances at once, while batteries with a higher usable capacity can store more total energy and thus can run your appliances for longer periods of time without needing to recharge.

Basic functionality

The functionality of one solar battery next to another can vary; some batteries have excellent off-grid capabilities, while others offer software solutions specific to rate arbitrage. The suite of Evolve hardware and software products are designed to provide both of these services.

Eguana offers a bi-directional inverter, or hybrid inverter, alongside their Evolve. This inverter acts as both a battery inverter and a rooftop solar array inverter. This means that, as long as your contractor installs the correct components and the Evolve inverter, your Eguana Evolve battery system will be able to provide backup power for your home when the grid goes down and continue interacting with your home solar panel system if you have one.

Their monitoring technology is fully built-in to their Evolve inverter. With their built-in monitoring technology, Eguana's Evolve batteries and their associated parts can intelligently manage electrical loads throughout your house and appropriately pull energy from the battery when needed.

Performance metrics

Two key ways to evaluate the performance of a solar battery are its depth of discharge and round-trip efficiency.

Depth of discharge (DoD) indicates the percentage of a battery's energy that has been discharged relative to the overall capacity of the battery. Because the useful life of a battery decreases each time you charge, discharge, and re-charge–or cycle–your battery, many battery manufacturers specify a maximum DoD level for optimal battery performance. In general, batteries with a higher depth of discharge are considered better-quality products. The Eguana Evolve boasts a solid depth of discharge of 90 percent.

Round-trip efficiency is a measure of electrical losses involved with charging and discharging a battery. The higher the efficiency percentage, the more efficiently the battery is able to convert incoming electricity into stored electricity and then back into usable electricity. The Eguana Evolve ESS has a high round-trip efficiency of 86.8 percent on an AC-coupled system; this means that for every 10 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity you put into the battery, you'll receive 8.68 kWh of output. Meanwhile, the Eguana Evolve LFP option has a high round-trip efficiency of 85.7 percent on an AC-coupled system; this means that for every 10 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, you put into the battery, you'll receive 85.7 kWh of output.

In most cases, homes with an Evolve battery will charge and drain the battery every day. The Evolve comes with a 10-year warranty. During this time period, Eguana guarantees that the battery will maintain at least 60 percent of its capacity to hold a charge. Eguana also offers an energy throughput warranty – the 60 percent retained capacity after ten years is only valid if the total energy throughput over the 10-year period is less than 19.2 megawatt-hours (MWh). Summed up, your Eguana Evolve battery is warranted to retain at least 60 percent of its capacity by the time you hit a lifetime of 10 years or an energy throughput of 19.2 MWh, whichever happens first.

Importantly, Eguana's battery technology is similar to other rechargeable batteries, both large and small: as time goes on, the battery loses some of its ability to hold a charge. Think of how the battery life of a brand-new smartphone compares to one that is a few years old. As you continually charge and drain your phone's battery, it starts to lose some of its ability to hold a charge.

The battery life of your Evolve battery will deteriorate in the same way. That isn't an indicator of a product flaw – all batteries lose some of their ability to hold a charge over time, whether it's an electric vehicle battery, a home energy battery, or a rechargeable AA battery. This is why Eguana offers a warranty that guarantees a certain amount of storage capacity.

If you want to compare individual battery models side-by-side, our battery Buyer's Guide lets you select products and compare them based on efficiency, capacity, power, and more.

The cost of installing a battery isn't as straightforward as looking up the list price for an individual component–i.e., your battery. In fact, depending on your electrical setup, installation costs can vary widely. According to EnergySage Marketplace data, a single Eguana Evolve battery costs somewhere between $10,000 and $13,000 fully installed.

If you want to install the Evolve as part of a solar-plus-storage system, battery costs are just one piece of the equation. A 5 kilowatt (kW) solar energy system costs anywhere from $9,000 to $15,000, depending on where you live and the type of equipment you choose.

That may sound like a lot of money, but installing a solar-plus-storage system can be a worthwhile investment. Whether or not the Eguana Evolve makes sense for you is determined by the way that your electric utility structures its rates, as well as your reasons for installing a solar battery.

In some cases, depending on where you live, you may have access to financial incentives that can reduce your home energy storage installation costs. For instance, if you live in California, you could get a cash rebate that covers most of your home battery costs through the Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP). Other states (such as Massachusetts) are in the early stages of evaluating battery storage performance incentives as well, and several states already provide cash rebates.

Adding energy storage technology to your home is a complicated process that requires electrical expertise, certifications, and knowledge of the best practices required to install a solar-plus-storage system correctly. A qualified EnergySage-approved company can give you the best recommendation about the Eguana home battery system and other energy storage options available to homeowners today. If you are interested in receiving competing installation quotes for solar and energy storage options from local installers near you, simply join the EnergySage Solar Marketplace today and indicate what products you're interested in your profile's preferences section.