JinkoSolar enters US battery market with residential and large-scale offerings

Global solar giant Jinko has quietly added battery storage to its PV product portfolio in the US, including a grid-scale or commercial and industrial offering, and an 8kW/19.2kWh residential unit.

Jinko’s home battery, pictured above, forms part of the Chinese company’s Eagle suite of products and solutions in the US, which includes high-powered solar modules and turnkey energy storage for utility, C&I, and residential applications.

According to the literature, the AC-coupled residential battery units have a lithium iron phosphate chemistry, which Jinko describes as “safest” for stationary storage.

The batteries are also outdoor-rated, contained in separate cabinets to allow for flexible installations, and offer “robust” management systems to monitor the battery’s working condition.

At the C&I end of the scale, the Eagle range offers a 500kW to 6MW containerised energy storage system, with between 30 minutes and 4 hour duration.

The move into home batteries is particularly interesting, however, in line with the company’s recent renewed focus on home solar, including the release of a purely residential PV module, which offers 405W of power output and an efficiency rate of 21.22%.

Whether the battery is offered in Australia remains to be seen. Back in 2016, JinkoSolar chairman, Xiande Li, told RenewEconomy in an interview that Jinko expected battery uptake in Australia would drive renewed PV growth in the residential market.

“Our partners are seeing significantly increased demand for battery storage from the residential rooftop market, albeit from a small base,” Li said.

“JinkoSolar understood that Australia is a nation of progressive thinkers and that the huge uptake of roof top solar indicated a collective drive towards an uptake of clean, renewable energy.”

Jinko, which currently tops the list of leading global PV manufacturers, last year joined the global RE100 initiative, with a pledge to source 70 per cent of its electricity needs with renewable energy by 2023, and 100 per cent by 2025.

And this year, in August, the company unveiled its new, super efficient 610W Tiger Pro TR module at the SNEC PV Power Expo in Shanghai, alongside its Building Integrated Photovoltaics product series (BIPV).