Anything new in batteries for solar
I have four 31 size lead acid batteries. They are heavy and you only get to used half their capacity. Is anything come up recently that could be a reasonable replacement--probably lithium?
Forum Discussion
We are full timers with solar/LFP battery banks in both systems: 34' fifth wheel and 19' (2002) Roadtrek.
5h wheel has 9+ kW-hrs LFP battery bank at 48 V (nominal). Our son designed and fabricated system 4.5 years ago and there is no noticeable degradation. He (with me standing about) trialed it with air conditioner (2+ kW), water heater, and microwave operating simultaneously through the 4.5 kW PSWI. We were drawing over 4 kW (0.5 C). We have run a/c for 4.5 hours as combination of solar/battery suite. We generally are outside on hot days and just run a/c for half an hour to drop cabin temperature below 90 F. 12 V fans are sufficient after that.
The Roadtrek has about 4.5 kW-hr of LFP (two Manzanita Micros batteries as opposed to four in 5th wheel) and it is sufficient to run the smaller a/c for two hours.
So we do a minor discharge/charge cycle each day since we primarily boondock even if we are in an RV park. Read that Liberty Coaches had done full cycles of their batteries over 3000 times. I mentioned this on a thread and a Liberty Coach ($1.8 M and up) said they had done far more cycles since that 3000 cycle article had been posted.
We do try to keep the charge to 50% SOC and higher but have gone below at times.
Our solar has allowed us to use line power less than 10% of our stops. We did use line power for a bit in Yucatan and San Cristobal de las Casas since we did have several days of rain (Roadtrek). We have run into a lot of "dirty power" in USA as well as Mexico so we always run line power through battery charger to the LFP banks.
Do not go to Solar Panel Talk for LFP information. Two of the primary posters are absolute Luddites.
Reed and Elaine
5h wheel has 9+ kW-hrs LFP battery bank at 48 V (nominal). Our son designed and fabricated system 4.5 years ago and there is no noticeable degradation. He (with me standing about) trialed it with air conditioner (2+ kW), water heater, and microwave operating simultaneously through the 4.5 kW PSWI. We were drawing over 4 kW (0.5 C). We have run a/c for 4.5 hours as combination of solar/battery suite. We generally are outside on hot days and just run a/c for half an hour to drop cabin temperature below 90 F. 12 V fans are sufficient after that.
The Roadtrek has about 4.5 kW-hr of LFP (two Manzanita Micros batteries as opposed to four in 5th wheel) and it is sufficient to run the smaller a/c for two hours.
So we do a minor discharge/charge cycle each day since we primarily boondock even if we are in an RV park. Read that Liberty Coaches had done full cycles of their batteries over 3000 times. I mentioned this on a thread and a Liberty Coach ($1.8 M and up) said they had done far more cycles since that 3000 cycle article had been posted.
We do try to keep the charge to 50% SOC and higher but have gone below at times.
Our solar has allowed us to use line power less than 10% of our stops. We did use line power for a bit in Yucatan and San Cristobal de las Casas since we did have several days of rain (Roadtrek). We have run into a lot of "dirty power" in USA as well as Mexico so we always run line power through battery charger to the LFP banks.
Do not go to Solar Panel Talk for LFP information. Two of the primary posters are absolute Luddites.
Reed and Elaine
