Course: Battery Power and Energy

About the Course

Batteries don’t just “hold electricity.” They store energy in a form that can be delivered as electrical power, and the same core ideas that explain a flashlight or cordless drill also explain how homes, buildings, and even whole communities use battery storage.

In this course, you’ll learn the language of battery power and energy, including voltage, current, resistance, power, and capacity. You’ll use simple equations to estimate runtime, compare batteries in series and parallel, and interpret the information on labels and datasheets. Then you’ll scale up from individual devices to home backup systems and finally to grid-scale storage, where energy, power, efficiency, losses, and resilience shape how batteries support homes and communities.

At a Glance:

• Level: Beginner to early intermediate
• Estimated time: ~3 hours
• Who it’s for: Newcomers to the battery sector, technicians, operators, engineers, educators, sales professionals, and anyone who needs to understand how battery power, energy, runtime, and storage are measured and applied
• Assessment: Final quiz (20 multiple choice questions)
• Certificate criteria: Pass with 75%+

What you’ll learn

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain core electrical quantities used in battery math and what each indicates about battery behavior (V, I, R, P, Wh, Ah).
• Apply Ohm’s Law (V = I × R), Power Law (P = V × I), and other foundational electrical formulas used in battery systems.
• Convert common battery and electrical units, including metric prefixes (milli-, kilo-), to support battery calculations (e.g., W ⇄ kW, Wh ⇄ kWh, A ⇄ mA).
• Calculate total voltage and capacity for batteries connected in series and in parallel.
• Estimate battery runtime and efficiency given load and capacity data.
• Analyze how factors such as temperature, internal resistance, and aging affect battery performance and lifespan.
• Explain performance changes across conditions by analyzing how temperature, internal resistance, and aging influence usable power, usable energy, and overall lifespan.
• Read a basic battery label or datasheet to make safe decisions, including identifying power limits, energy/capacity, expected runtime, and operating/safety constraints.

Skills you’ll gain

• Electrical concept fluency for batteries and battery-powered devices
• Equation-based reasoning with voltage, current, resistance, power, and energy
• Runtime estimation and load analysis
• Datasheet interpretation and battery comparison
• Home energy and backup storage sizing basics
• Grid-scale storage literacy, including losses, resilience, and distributed storage concepts

Course syllabus

Module 1: Battery Units, Power, Runtime, and Performance

• Voltage, current, resistance, power, energy, and capacity
• Ohm’s Law and the Power Law
• Batteries in series and parallel
• Estimating runtime and efficiency
• Internal resistance, temperature, and aging
• Reading battery labels and datasheets
• State of charge and state of health

Module 2: Home Energy Use and Battery Storage

• Power vs. energy in the home
• Measuring household energy demand
• Estimating daily usage from appliances and loads
• Understanding home battery specifications
• Total energy vs. usable capacity
• Continuous power, peak power, and current limits

Module 3: Grid-Scale Storage and Energy Losses

• Grid-level units such as megawatts and megawatt-hours
• Estimating storage needs for communities
• Depth of discharge and round-trip efficiency
• Energy losses across batteries, inverters, transformers, and transmission
• Centralized vs. distributed storage
• How battery storage supports resilience, peak demand reduction, and grid stability 

Final Assessment (1 hour)

• Final quiz: 20 multiple-choice questions
• Passing score: 75%+

Course format and learning supports

This online learning experience provides you with interactive content, videos, readings, a downloadable learning guide, non-graded practice opportunities, and a graded final assessment to help you apply and reinforce the material covered in this course.

• Short, focused lessons that build from everyday battery examples to home and grid-scale applications
• Simple equation-based reasoning designed to strengthen confidence without making the course feel math-heavy
• Practical comparisons, worked examples, and decision-making frameworks you can use on the job
• Real-world interpretation of battery labels, datasheets, appliance loads, and storage system specifications

Click HERE to go back to the main Battery Academy page on NENY's website.