Why do we use Lithium for Solar Battery Storage? 🔋🪫
Lithium batteries have gained popularity as home storage solutions paired with solar PV systems. This video delves into the reasons why lithium surpasses older battery technologies like lead acid. We also examine the electrical connections that are typically found on a lithium storage battery.
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Time Stamps ⏱
00:00 Adding battery storage to PV systems is increasingly popular
00:27 Comparing a SunSynk 5kWh battery to standard lead acid batteries
01:32 The difference in power density
01:50 It's all down to the chemistry of the batteries
02:50 Lithium does have some drawbacks
03:08 There is a way round these problems
03:25 Can we put these batteries in any installation?
03:52 The connections are also different
04:05 The SunSynk battery can share its critical information
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#lithiumbattery #solarbattery #homeenergy
Lots of advertising for SunSynk here - should probably mention that their network in the UK is offline yet again today, and we haven't been able to access our inverters for over 12 hours and counting... They may make good hardware, but their online services are an afterthought written on a post-it, taped to a potato.
Thanks for the feedback
Take a look at the Solar Assistant software, it should work with SunSynk.
Just checked with Solar Assistant and it works with the SunSynk inverter, apparently, all of the following inverters are the same: Deye SunSynk Turbo Energy, I've been using Solar Assistant for about 9 months now and it's never gone down, It's about £50 plus you will need a Raspberry pi and memory card.
SunSynk is just a rebranded Deye product
Mixing units as usual - the washing machine would use kWh not kW 🤦♂️ Also to note that Lead Acids have a 50% depth of discharge so you essentially need double the capacity you calculate from the Ah ratings to get the same useable capacity unlike Li where you can go down to 5-10%. Another downside is that the charge and discharge rates for LA are far lower that Li based packs meaning again bigger overall banks for LA vs Li for the same power delivery in either direction 🤓
The lead acid 50% thing is a bit of a misunderstanding combined with Chinese Whispers gone wrong. The batteries will achieve their rated cycle count when fully discharged but it's usually a miserable figure. 200 to 400 cycles depending on the particular variant.
and don't forget the 15-17% charging inefficiency 🤣
All of the above (and mixed units are a pet peeve of mine). Plus lithium based cells may be happily stored with only 30% charge or so for very long periods. Lead-acid cells prefer to be kept topped up to prevent sulphation.
@@thattoolguy9432yes that is a big one that changes the viability complety if you only get back 80% of the power you put in, on top of all the other disadvantages of Lead Acid
@@retrozmachine1189 please explain the fully discharged bit?
If only the people of Graveney watched your video, they seem to think LFP batteries are going to murder puppies. According to Swale Borough Council LFP batteries are "more subject to explosion risk than other types", which is news to anyone who understands chemistry, but in modern Britain feelings trump science.
Sure, anyone who understands chemistry. Suuuuure. Absolute midwit.
Probably sheppeyites with webbed feet 🤣pretty safe tech until punctured or in a fire
LiFePO4 cells are a great advance in battery tech. They don't burst in to flames like normal lithium ion if they get damaged. Many LiFePO4 cells are what is known as deep cycle, which means that you can take them down to a low voltage cut off without causing damage to the battery. LiFePO4 batteries do not like going below 2.65v per cell, but fully charged they are 3.65 as opposed to the lithium ion which is 3.2 to 4.2v range. This is why some chargers won't charge a completely flat cell as rescuing a flat cell you have to be careful how you do it, and you also have to be careful with the charging voltages as they are different. Sometimes it is possible. LiFePO4 batteries don't have the peak current output that a lithium ion does, which isn't usually a problem for a PV battery as you'll take the charge out gradually rather than as with something like a drone which is done in 10-20 mins. You can and do get gel style lead acid batteries which are used in alarms, UPS's, mobility scooters etc as they don't have to be kept upright and won't leak out the acid, but they don't have the peak current output ability without causing damage compared to a car battery. A car battery is designed to give a brief amount of power to start an engine. They are not deep cycle, which is why leaving them flat kills them, unlike a deep cycle gel cell which will tolerate it to some extent. LiFePO4 also generally can't be charged too rapidly - typically half the battery capacity, so an all day charge via solar is fine. Unlike lithium ion which can handle many times the capacity rating. This is why LiFePO4 is not suitable for EV's, although some electric bus's do use LiFePO4 as paralleling them up increases the take off peak power, and a bus will normally sit overnight to charge.
Haha, yes, fuel up the car, check the washer bottle and top up the battery cells. How many years has it been since I topped up the battery in the car? Maintenance free took care of that long ago. Obviously this is a simplified description of canbus and battery comms for the average person off the street. There's also good old modbus over RS485 present on many battery systems.
Also to take into account is that lead acid is only good for 50% of it's rated output before you start getting into damaging low voltage. You'd need upwards of 10kwh rated of lead acid to get 50kwh of useable power.. This is well know in the leisure, ie, caravan/motorhome industry,
My battery storage is lead acid well actually AGM they are in a garage so space and weight not an issue plus i get the batteries for free
Hope your time is free, as pulling out second hand AGM batteries and swapping them out every 18 months ain't my idea of fun.
Sodium ion batteries look very promising for home storage. The don't currently perform as well as lithium, being larger and heavier, so not as good for EVs, but not really a problem for stationary storage. Sodium's a way more abundant material than lithium, so cost of manufacturing should be cheaper.
Don't hold your breath on the cost of manufacturing. Do some web searches about the amount of lithium in the cells and the price paid for it then take that cost away fully and look at the difference in price for any given cell, and keep in mind that the sodium components aren't free in a sodium ion cell.
"An industry standard protocol…" which no two manufacturers seems to be able to agree on sufficiently to allow interoperationality. So flaky is it that even kit from the same source is a bit hit and miss. 🤣
canbus is an industry standard but what it carries is another thing. The alphabet is standard yet write a complex sentence in English and watch someone that only understands French make head or tail of it.
Leave the lithium to the mobile application. Use lead for stationary uses
Lead is super expensive, you can't deep cycle lead batteries so you need at least 2x the capacity and finally you'd be doing very well to get over 1000 cycles out of lead, you should be expecting 4 x that out of LFP and if you treated it as kindly as you have to lead you'd get a lifetimes worth of cycles out of them. Keep lead on our roofs.
You are wrong. Nothing wrong with LiFePo4 for stationary storage.
Yeah but lead acid don’t spontaneously burst into flames like lithium
Well it can/will produce hydrogen which can/will lead to an explosion that flattens your building, while disfiguring any unlucky bystanders, but better the devil we know I suppose.
LiFePO4 which is in this particular units doesn't spontaneously burst into flames. You have to abuse them a lot before they thermally runaway. NMC on the other hand, 'My first Tesla Battery Fire' - watch that clip.
Nice story, but for sure I do not want a big such lithium battery n or on my home. For safety I charge all lithium cell (my iPad/iphone etc) in a metal cubert with fire resistant coating.
Lithium Iron Phospate cells (not Lithium Phosphate as misnamed in the video) do not have the safety risks of the popular Lithium Manganese batteries and other variants used in phones, laptops, etc. They don't have quite the same energy density, but they are very well suited to this application.
Plus they are in a metal box.@@GodmanchesterGoblin
@mprelectrical That helps too. But for Lithium Iron Phosphate cells, it's the cell chemistry that helps reduce the risk of fire. In contrast, a metal box will only go so far in preventing a fire spreading from burning Lithium Manganese cells. Once started, they do not need oxygen to continue burning and can be hard to extinguish.