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PV batteries

Chris Pearson

Spinning off from the thread on Public Consultation: PAS 63100, I was wondering about the type of battery which may be used with a PV array. Lithium ion ones seem to be on offer, but have the disadvantage of the possibility of igniting themselves.

I have an older vehicle which has a 110 Ah lead acid battery. If it really can deliver 110 A for 1 hour (or 1 A for 110 h) at 12 V, that is 1.32 kWh and half a dozen would be 8 kWh. The one that I bought last year cost about £200.

I appreciate that the characteristics of lead acid batteries for cars, boats, caravans, etc. are different, but lead acid seems to be significantly cheaper and safer than lithium ion. Am I missing something?

P.S. If you can run a submarine on a whole compartment of lead acid batteries, they cannot be that bad!

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  • If you can run a submarine on a whole compartment of lead acid batteries, they cannot be that bad!

    Indeed - a lot of older off-grid systems used to use ex-submarine batteries. I recently visited South Stack Lighthouse - they still have racks of old glass cased lead-acid batteries (no longer in service) that were used as stand-by power the light & fog horn - all inside the main building, along with a diesel generator.

    +1 for the discharge level warning - as a rule of thumb the leisure battery in our caravan isn't supposed to go below 50% - so the 100Ah unit is really only useful for 50Ah.

       - Andy.

  • in reply to AJJewsbury

    Whereas deep-discharge is ok with lithium, but it's not good keeping them above 80% for extended periods as it causes them to age faster.

  • in reply to keylevel

    Ideally, for lithium, not charged above 80% or discharged below 20%

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