Battery min reserve (kWh)

How the simulator uses it

When discharging the battery to cover load or export to grid, we stop once the battery reaches this reserve value. Below that level any remaining load draws from the grid (grid-tied) or shortfalls (off-grid). The reserve stays untouched for the whole calculation window.

Typical values

• 10% of capacity — most home batteries (Powerwall, LFP wall packs) recommend a 10–20% min reserve for cycle longevity. A 13.5 kWh Powerwall with 10% reserve = 1.35 kWh.
• 20–30% of capacity — if you live in an outage-prone area or want guaranteed evening backup.
• 0 kWh — for off-grid setups where every kWh counts and the hardware DOD floor is enforced by the inverter, not the simulator.

Common pitfalls

• Setting min reserve close to capacity (say 12 of 13.5 kWh) leaves almost no usable battery — the simulator will show high grid imports because there’s no headroom to discharge.
• If you want zero reserve for a model run but your real-world inverter enforces 10%, set the reserve to what the inverter actually does — otherwise the simulator will over-estimate self-consumption.