https://www.wholesalesolar.com/blog/lead-acid-vs-lithium-batteries/
This solar company wrote up this analysis regarding Lead Acid vs Lithium
and generally recommend Lead Acid for off grid residential use.
I went through their analysis and the only problem I had with it is that
their lead acid batteries are over priced.
Which, if their Lithium batteries are priced right, means that Lead Acid
is by far the best way to go.
I think their numbers for a Crown Lead Acid bank was $2800. I did some
numbers and figured I could create a deep cycle bank of the same
capacity for about $1800.
Making your own power wall or Lithium battery pack is certainly a
possibility, but as mentioned cell balancing circuity is required.
I have a sailboat and participate in several sailboat lists and the
overwhelming way to go for house power on a larger sailboat is to use 6V
golf cart batteries.
The cost per power stored is cheaper than using 12 volt batteries and
golf cart batteries are true deep cycle batteries which are commonly
available.
A lot of 12 volt deep cycle batteries are compromised designs.
Now if these batteries were in a mobile device, like a car, that would
be an entirely different comparison since weight is a big deal in a
mobile device.
But these are for a stationary application.
Regarding the power wall concept. The idea of having 20+ KWHR of stored
energy in my house is a little daunting.
If a short circuit occurs and the batteries melt down, your house could
be gone.
I'd put the battery bank in an outbuilding. If something shorts out and
the battery bank melts down, the little building may burn but my house
won't.
Dave
On 5/14/2019 2:11 PM, Kirk Wallace wrote:
On 5/14/19 9:33 AM, Dave Cole wrote:
I've been planning to put up an array on my roof. But I have plenty
of space so I may do a ground level install.
It would be a lot easier to maintain.
FLA batteries seem to be the general recommendation for a constant
use residential install.
In my opinion, lead-acid batteries of any format are far inferior to
lithium. LA batteries need to be at full charge most of the time or
they will degrade and with good management will only last about 5
years. I ended up running my generator to charge my FLA batteries in
the evening if the solar had not brought them up during the day. So I
ran the generator most days. Lithium batteries don't like to be fully
charged so now I don't need to worry about topping up before I go to
bed. Lead-acid batteries typically have a cycle life in the hundreds
of cycles where lithium battery cycle life is in the thousands or
more, and end up being cheaper in the longer term. On the other hand,
Lithium batteries are easy to kill if they are over or under charged,
so a proper battery manager/protector/balancer is a must. Otherwise
they have a wide charge range and don't mind be anywhere within that
range. I have been using these with good success for a while:
https://kit.com/jehu/lithium-battery-sources-july-2018/1274926-johnson-controls-24-
https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/solar-charge-controllers.html
(Epever 40 amp)
I've had chargers trash batteries when they failed. I sure wouldn't
want that to happen to $10K worth of Lithium batteries!
Weight isn't an issue.
Dave
... snipped to end
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