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Lead Acid Batteries: Are They A superb Solar Battery?Is lead-acid an excellent photo voltaic battery?

Lead-acid battery pros and cons

When should you choose lead acid batteries?

Lead acid battery FAQs

Lead Acid Batteries: Are They A superb Photo voltaic Battery?

Invented in 1859, lead acid batteries are the oldest rechargeable battery. First used to power practice carriage lights, lead-acid is at present the dominant battery used within the automotive industry.

Does this mean you should utilize a car battery as a photo voltaic battery? You can however automotive batteries aren’t designed for frequent charging and discharging. You’ll wear that battery out in a couple of months.

Lead acid photo voltaic batteries are either Flooded Lead Acid (FLA) or Sealed Lead Acid (SLA). This publish is a broad introduction to guide-acid. If you wish to get into specifics of each kind check out this information to flooded lead acid batteries, this one on sealed lead acid batteries, and this comparability of flooded vs sealed lead acid batteries.

Is lead-acid a superb solar battery?

The primary advantage lead-acid has over different types of photo voltaic batteries is the value. Lead-acid is the most cost effective. Lead-acid batteries are as much as 2-3 instances cheaper than lithium.

Lead-acid has some drawbacks. Lead-acid batteries have a shorter cycle depend, take longer to charge and deliver much less energy.

If you’re buying round for solar batteries and you’re taking a look at lead-acid listed here are some key traits, you might want to know.

Battery capability

Capacity is the full vitality a battery holds. Batteries even have a depth of discharge. Depth of discharge is how much power (as a percentage of the batteries whole capacity) you need to use.

Lead-acid has a depth of discharge of 50%. Meaning when you’ve got a 100Ah battery you should utilize 50Ah with out the risk of permanently decreasing the batteries capacity. This happens once you exceed the depth of discharge.

Depth of discharge is vital to know because:

1. Sticking to the depth of discharge gives the battery a longer lifespan.

2. Depth of discharge can decide the sizing and design of a solar energy system.

The capability of lead-acid batteries isn’t mounted. It varies with how quickly it’s discharged. The extra appliances you have, the faster the discharge. The faster the discharge, the decrease the capability.

Efficiency

Battery effectivity is how much vitality stored you should utilize. If in case you have a hundred watts coming right into a lead-acid battery, you should use 85 watts. That’s because lead-acid has an efficiency of 85%.

As a result of they’ve lower effectivity, lead acid batteries charge slower. This is especially essential for an off-grid photo voltaic system in winter or on cloudy days.

Power density

The density of a battery is how a lot energy per weight it holds. Lead-acid has the lowest energy density in comparison with different battery sorts.

A lower power density makes lead acid batteries up to 50% bigger and 3 times heavier than lithium. Being bigger and heavier will be an issue in terms of installation when you have restricted area.

Here’s an in depth comparison of lithium vs lead acid batteries if you want to know which is the higher photo voltaic battery and why.

Cycle life

Batteries have a cycle life. A charge and discharge (by use) make one cycle. Lead-acid batteries have an average of 2000 cycles. You can cost + discharge them about 2000 occasions.

To work this out in days divide 2000 by 365. This offers lead-acid a lifespan of roughly 5 years. This is based on a one cycle per day basis whereas sticking to the depth of discharge.

Different traits

It is advisable know the capacity, effectivity, density and cycle life of a solar battery. There are a number of other efficiency specs that aren’t as critical however are still essential. These are flexibility, battery maintenance, self-discharge and recycling.

Flexibility

With lead-acid, you can’t combine batteries of different ages. All the batteries, if wired collectively, must be bought collectively. The drawback of this is you can’t buy one battery this year then buy extra as your power needs develop or as money becomes out there.

With lithium, you possibly can mix batteries of various ages.

Upkeep

Flooded lead-acid batteries need upkeep. If you happen to don’t want a battery that requires you to be palms on then you definately don’t need an FLA battery. Discover out what sort of upkeep is required for flooded lead-acid batteries right here.

Self-discharge

Batteries lose some energy even when they’re not connected to a load. Lead-acid has a better charge of self-discharge (2-5%) per month than other batteries.

Recycling

As a result of they comprise lead, lead-acid batteries are tougher to recycle. The lead presents an environmental hazard if not properly disposed of.

As it’s extremely toxic, this makes lead-acid battery recycling one of the world’s deadliest industrial processes.

Lead-acid battery execs and cons

To summarize all the pieces, let’s weigh up the pros and cons of lead acid.

Pros of lead-acid

1. It’s the cheapest photo voltaic battery. It may possibly value as much as 2-3 instances lower than lithium batteries.

Cons

1. Much less depth of discharge offers you much less usable energy.

2. Slower charging. This is important in winter and on cloudy days when there is much less sun to charge the batteries.

3. A much bigger and heavier battery restricts installation choices in case you have limited space.

4. Shorter lifespan.

5. Some lead-acid batteries like FLA want upkeep.

6. Restricted flexibility when it comes to expanding your battery bank dimension.

When must you choose lead acid batteries?

Lead-acid has a number of disadvantages. This doesn’t mean you should break the financial institution to go together with lithium batteries. There are specific situations where lead-acid will work just wonderful.

Off-Grid house or full-time use

For off-grid or full-time use, you can go along with Flooded Lead Acid (FLA) as long as you don’t mind the maintenance.

For a 2nd residence or residence, you don’t use as much, Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) is ideal. They don’t need maintenance and won’t die if left idle for long periods.

Battery backup

If you’re just nervous about blackouts or load shedding and you need backup power you want Sealed Lead-Acid (SLA). Lithium is likely to be costly if you’re barely going to use them and FLA requires too much maintenance.