Solar components and resources
Batteries for energy storage, our charge controllers are designed to work with all lead variants as well as Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, although, we highly recommend Lithium Iron Phosphate or "LFP" for a number of reasons:
We have LiFePO4 "Lithium Iron Phosphate" batteries from 2012 and 2013 in service that still deliver 100% of their rated capacity - they are cycled every day and have been run down 100% depth of discharge many times...
To further illustrate this we have included a visual representation of the battery comparison in the below file.
- With any lead variant you are only supposed to utilize the top 1/3 of the available capacity of the battery. So, if you have a 100 amp hour battery, your usable capacity is actually only 33 amp hours to get the maximum number of cycles out of your pack. If you discharge deeper than this, you will greatly decrease the number of cycles you will get out of your pack. With a Lithium Iron Phosphate 100 amp hour pack, you have a full usable 100 amp hours. In order to get the full 100 amp hours with a Lead based battery you need to have 3 times the number of batteries to have the same usable amount of power. Any perceived cost advantage of using lead variant is now gone.
- Because of the 1/3 rule, and having to have 3 times the number of batteries with lead, the physical amount of space required is now more than triple by using a Deep Cycle / AGM / Gel Battery versus the Lithium Iron Phosphate.
- Lead is heavy! An average 100 amp hour lead acid battery weighs about 72 pounds, Lithium Iron Phosphate 100 amp hour battery is about 33 pounds. Now, when you factor in the 3:1 ratio 72 X 3 = 216 pounds vs 33 pounds for Lithium Iron Phosphate... or a weight savings with Lithium of about 7 times less weight.
- Energy return ratio, Lead acid 100 amp hours in you'll get at best 70 out, while typically its 65 out. With Lithium Iron Phosphate 100 amp hours in yields 99.8 amp hours out using our charge controllers. By Using Lithium Iron Phosphate your system efficiency just improved by about 35% over a traditional Deep Cycle / AGM / Gel Battery.
- No capacity loss with faster discharge rates with Lithium Iron Phosphate like you will get with any lead variant. Lead batteries loose capacity the faster you discharge them but the Lithium Iron Phosphate does not suffer this loss.
- Minimal voltage sag under load with Lithium Iron Phosphate. DC to AC Inverters like this because they do not have to work as hard. With Lithium Iron Phosphate you will get the full surge of current even at 1% state of charge.
- Lithium Iron Phosphate does not have any out gassing, they do not require any maintenance, and you can mount them in any orientation.
- Cycle life of Lithium Iron Phosphate they are rated for more than 2000 full depth of discharge cycles and still being at 80% of rated capacity or more. Lead acid if you deep discharge them you'll be lucky to get 200 cycles, 400 cycles at 50% depth of discharge and maybe 1000 at 30% depth of discharge.
We have LiFePO4 "Lithium Iron Phosphate" batteries from 2012 and 2013 in service that still deliver 100% of their rated capacity - they are cycled every day and have been run down 100% depth of discharge many times...
To further illustrate this we have included a visual representation of the battery comparison in the below file.
| battery_comparison.pdf |
Solar Panels, there are a number of really reputable companies out there. Things you want to specifically look at are the warranty, you should see 10 years on workmanship and 25 years to 80% on power output. Bonus if they are hailstone rated. If you are looking at buying a number of panels we have found the following resource to be of great use. You can sort by the column headers, pay close attention to the minimum number of panels per order, as they range from a minimum of 10, up to 48 panels.
Inverters: Things to remember with inverters, if you are powering an item that has a motor, such as a refrigerator, furnace blowers, AC units, ceiling fans, etc, remember to use a True Sine Wave Inverter, if you do not, you will burn up the motor in the item that you are tying to power. The less expensive non sine wave inverters are an ok fit for general electronics like light bulbs and non motor items.
If low RF noise is of importance look for CLASS A FCC rating or even better would be CLASS B FCC rating which is 10dB lower.
Our Controllers easily exceed FCC Class B Requirements and have very low RF Emissions.
Power conversion efficiency is also important - look for something 90% or better.
If low RF noise is of importance look for CLASS A FCC rating or even better would be CLASS B FCC rating which is 10dB lower.
Our Controllers easily exceed FCC Class B Requirements and have very low RF Emissions.
Power conversion efficiency is also important - look for something 90% or better.
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