What Can a 10kWh Battery Run?

A 10kWh battery is the size most European households land on after their first winter with solar. It is large enough to carry a normal evening and overnight, small enough to stay affordable, and it can absorb most of what a 5–6kW array produces on a good day. The useful question is not how many appliances it lists, but how many hours of your actual routine it covers. This guide answers that with real numbers.

The Short Answer

A 10kWh LiFePO4 battery gives you roughly 8.5–9kWh of usable energy. That runs a typical home's evening and overnight load — lights, fridge, TV, cooking, broadband, hot water circulation — for about 18–24 hours, or a full day of essentials without any solar input. It can run a small heat pump for four to seven hours, or add 60–70km of range to an electric car. It will not heat a house through a winter night on its own.

How Much of a 10kWh Battery You Can Actually Use

Nameplate capacity is not usable capacity. LiFePO4 cells are normally discharged to 80–90% depth, so treat 10kWh as about 8.5–9kWh at the terminals, then subtract inverter losses of roughly 5%. The formula stays simple: runtime = usable kWh ÷ average load in kW. A household drawing 0.5kW averages 17–18 hours; one drawing 1kW gets 8.5–9 hours.

What a 10kWh Battery Can Run: Appliance Runtimes

Load	Power draw	Approx. runtime on 8.75kWh usable
Fridge-freezer	0.10 kW	~87 hours
LED lighting (whole house)	0.15 kW	~58 hours
Wi-Fi, TV, laptops	0.20 kW	~44 hours
Washing machine cycle	0.50 kW average	~17 cycles
Dishwasher cycle	0.60 kW average	~14 cycles
Oven (1 hour)	2.0 kW	~4.3 hours
Air-source heat pump (heating)	1.5 kW	~5.8 hours
7kW EV charger	7.0 kW	~1.25 hours

Read the table as a budget, not a menu. Every hour of oven or heat pump is an hour the fridge is not covered. Round-trip efficiency is the other half of the maths: a LiFePO4 system returns roughly 92–95% of what you put in, so 10kWh stored delivers about 9.2–9.5kWh at the socket. Lead-acid in the same role loses 15–20%, which is one reason a 10kWh lithium pack replaces a considerably larger lead-acid bank.

Three Real Scenarios

Scenario 1 — Evening and overnight in a family home

A four-person home using 12kWh a day typically draws 6–7kWh between 17:00 and 07:00. A 10kWh battery filled during the day covers that whole window with margin, which is where most of the bill savings come from on a time-of-use tariff.

Scenario 2 — A full day without sun

In an outage, dropping to essentials — fridge, lights, broadband, TV, phone charging — averages 0.4–0.5kW. On 8.75kWh usable that is 17–22 hours, comfortably a full day, with enough left to boil a kettle and run the microwave.

Scenario 3 — A small workshop or office

A workshop running lights, a laptop, a router, a 3D printer and a small compressor draws about 1kW average. Ten kilowatt-hours covers a working day and the evening, which is why this size is common in light-commercial retrofits.

Scenario 4 — Heating water with a solar diverter

A diverter sends surplus solar to the immersion heater instead of exporting it. A 3kW immersion run for an hour puts roughly 3kWh of heat into a 200-litre cylinder — enough for two showers. On a 10kWh system this works best during the day from surplus, because drawing it from the battery simply moves the same energy from the evening load to the hot water tank.

Can a 10kWh Battery Run a Heat Pump?

Partly, and the distinction matters. A modern air-source heat pump drawing 1.5kW continuously will run for roughly six hours on a full pack. That covers a winter evening peak, not a winter night, and not a cold snap. If your goal is to shift heat-pump consumption off peak prices, 10kWh is a sensible start; if your goal is heating independence, you need 20–30kWh plus a much larger array.

Can a 10kWh Battery Charge an Electric Car?

It can, but slowly and at a cost to the house. At 7kW the pack empties in about 1.25 hours, adding roughly 8–9kWh to the car — around 50–60km of range. Charging at 3.6kW is gentler and adds the same energy over about 2.5 hours. Most households are better off charging the car from solar directly during the day and reserving the battery for the house.

10kWh or 5kWh: Which Fits Your Home?

Use your own bill. If you use 8–10kWh a day and want evening coverage only, 5kWh is enough and cheaper. If you use 12–16kWh a day, want overnight coverage and some outage protection, 10kWh is the right size. Above 20kWh a day, or if you are adding a heat pump or an EV, plan for 15–20kWh. Our guides to what a 5kWh battery can power and how many batteries you need walk through the arithmetic in more detail.

Winter, Degradation and What to Expect in Year Ten

Two adjustments keep expectations honest. First, winter production in northern Europe falls to 20–30% of summer, so a 10kWh battery will often sit partly full rather than cycle fully — that is normal, not a fault. Second, capacity fades slowly: a good LiFePO4 pack retains around 80% of its original capacity after several thousand cycles, so a 10kWh battery bought today is effectively an 8kWh battery a decade from now. Size for the load you have, not the load you hope to have.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long will a 10kWh battery power a house?

About 17–22 hours for essential loads at 0.4–0.5kW, or 8–9 hours at a 1kW average draw. Whole-house heating and hot water shorten that to a few hours.

Is 10kWh enough to go off-grid?

Only for a very efficient, low-consumption home in a sunny climate with a large array. Most off-grid homes in northern Europe need 20kWh or more plus a generator for winter.

Can I add a second 10kWh battery later?

Yes on most modern 48V systems, provided the batteries are the same chemistry and voltage and the inverter is rated for the combined current. Plan the cable and breaker sizes for the final capacity at installation time.

Ten kilowatt-hours, expandable when you need more.
The VNICE Razzi 10K is a 51.2V 200Ah semi-solid-state LiFePO4 battery rated at 10kWh, with a BMS designed for parallel expansion — the same platform used in our larger home storage builds.
👉 Shop the Razzi 10K Battery · EU Stock Battery Packs