A battery that stays full while your home buys electricity from the grid can look like something is wrong. Sometimes it is. Other times, the battery is doing exactly what its settings tell it to do.

SolarEdge battery modes determine when stored energy is used and what the system prioritizes. Using more of your own solar, reducing expensive grid purchases, and keeping energy available for an outage are different goals.

For Sacramento-area homeowners, the right setting depends on the utility rate plan, household usage, and how important backup power is.

What Do SolarEdge Battery Modes Control?

The operating mode guides battery charging and discharging while utility power is available. It works alongside other settings, including backup reserve and any permitted grid charging or export limits.

Available options vary by inverter, battery, firmware, region, and site configuration. Older StorEdge systems and newer SolarEdge Home systems may not show identical menus.

SolarEdge describes its energy management features on the SolarEdge ONE overview. Check which features your particular system supports before assuming every advertised option is available.

Maximize Self Consumption: Use More of Your Own Solar

This mode prioritizes using solar energy at home rather than making decisions around electricity prices. Solar supplies household loads, and surplus production can charge the battery for later use.

When solar production no longer covers demand, stored energy can help supply the home, subject to reserve settings and equipment limits.

The tradeoff: reducing grid use is not always the same as reducing the bill as much as possible.

For example, using stored energy earlier in the afternoon could leave less available during an expensive evening period. Whether that happens depends on production, consumption, and the system’s control strategy.

This mode is worth considering when using your own solar is the main goal or when electricity prices do not change much throughout the day.

Time of Use: Save Stored Energy for Expensive Hours

Time of Use mode considers the utility rate schedule and manages stored energy to reduce grid purchases during higher-priced periods.

Instead of treating every hour equally, the system plans battery use around peak pricing. SolarEdge’s supported controls allow a utility rate plan or manually entered peak-hour ranges, depending on configuration.

Grid charging may also be used where supported and permitted. Selecting Time of Use does not automatically mean your battery can charge from the grid.

Check the actual plan on your bill. A correct utility name with the wrong rate schedule can still produce the wrong operating strategy.

As an example, PG&E identifies 4–9 p.m. as the period to reduce usage for residential Solar Billing Plan customers on its Electric Home rate. Other plans may differ.

Manual Control: Set Charging and Discharging Schedules

Manual Control allows you to define charging and discharging periods. Supported settings also include scheduled pauses.

This can be useful when you want a specific schedule rather than relying entirely on automatic planning.

However, a schedule needs to match how the home actually operates. A discharge window that starts too early may use stored energy before it is most valuable. A charging schedule may also need adjustment as solar production changes seasonally.

Manual Control does not remove equipment limits or authorize grid charging and battery exports that the site is not configured to allow.

Backup Only: Keep Energy Available for an Outage

Backup Only reserves battery energy for outages instead of routine daily bill reduction. The system aims to keep the battery charged and ready.

Seeing grid imports while the battery remains full can therefore be expected behavior in this mode.

Backup Only requires a compatible backup installation. A battery alone does not mean the home can operate when utility power fails.

This setting fits homeowners whose main priority is outage readiness. The tradeoff is less use of stored energy to offset everyday electricity purchases.

SolarEdge Backup Reserve Is a Separate Setting

Backup reserve sets aside a percentage of battery capacity for an outage on compatible systems. It can work alongside modes that use the remaining energy for daily operation.

For example, a 30% reserve generally means routine discharge stops around that level, leaving the reserved energy available for backup.

A higher reserve leaves less energy for daily use. A lower reserve leaves more available for bill reduction, but less stored energy if an outage begins before the battery recharges.

Reserve percentage does not guarantee a particular number of backup hours. Runtime depends on the energy available when the outage starts and the loads being supplied.

Which Battery Mode Makes Sense for PG&E Solar Customers?

For a home with time-of-use pricing, reviewing Time of Use mode is a reasonable starting point when reducing the bill is the main goal. That is a starting point for comparison, not a guarantee that one mode is best for every home.

PG&E’s Solar Billing Plan values exports according to when electricity reaches the grid. The value of storing energy depends on both the purchase price you avoid later and the export credit you give up now.

NEM 2.0 customers have different billing rules, so the same strategy may produce different results. For more context, see PG&E Solar True-Up Explained.

Sacramento-area homes served by other utilities should use their own rate schedules and solar billing terms. Do not apply a PG&E schedule simply because the home is in the Sacramento region.

What to Check Before Changing Your Battery Settings

• Current mode: Record the selected setting before making changes.
• Backup reserve: Check whether the battery has reached its reserved level.
• Utility rates: Confirm the rate plan and peak periods against the current bill.
• Energy history: Compare solar production, battery activity, and grid imports over several days.
• Monitoring accuracy: Unexpected consumption or reversed power flow warrants checking the metering configuration.
• Equipment status: Review alerts if the battery is not responding as expected.

Change one setting at a time and compare days with reasonably similar weather and usage. A single cloudy day is not enough to judge the result.