Sources for NiFe batteries?

[yopappamon]

So a car hit the power pole feeding my area and I've been without power since midnight last night. I broke out my Thundersky's and an inverter and am running the fridge off of them. So SheWhoMustBeObeyed said 'Maybe you should get some of those expensive batteries that never wear out.' You don't have to tell me twice!

So the question is, what are good sources for buying Nickel Iron batteries? I have a few links, any others?

http://www.beutilityfree.com/Electric/Ni-Fe

http://ironedison.com/

http://www.zappworks.com/

 

[amberwolf]

I'm pretty sure SAFT makes them, but I couldnt' find where their distributor list is on their site (but several sections of the site don't fully come up, and give me server errors, so maybe they're doing maintenance?)
http://www.saftbatteries.com/

 

[jonescg]

We have a mob called IronCore in Melbourne. Not sure where they get their cells from though:

http://www.ironcorebatteries.com.au

 

[dogman dan]

I find my generator the most practical thing for the twice a year or more outages I get. Where I live the grid isn't a grid. It's more of a long dead end street with me at the end. Something is always happening up the road, knocking out 1/4 of the city. Plans in place to fix the problem, but not built yet. Meanwhile I have two generators. A little one to power tv, computer, some light, gets broken out if the outage lasts longer than 45 min. The big generator is for the fridge and heat or AC if they are longer outages caused by a semi truck crash taking out the power lines. So regular here now, that I have a plug in the wall that leads to a male plug on the outside. No need to open a window to get the power into the house.

Anyway, I'd say buy a 1000-2000 w gennie first, then look at battery setups. If you are talking about setting up a small off grid solar setup, that would be a different decision.

 

[TylerDurden]

I find the NiFe are very hard to source and expensive, plus they are flooded cells and need tending.

So, I prefer to use lithium based cells which are more affordable and available.

:wink:

 

[spinningmagnets]

Look into vanadium redox batteries. I don't know if they are available to the public yet, or what the prices are for a unit small enough for a single home, but...they sound pretty good. I haven't talked to anyone who has used them yet, so I don't know what the issues may be.

 

[yopappamon]

If you are talking about setting up a small off grid solar setup, that would be a different decision.

Yeah, the goal is to in 5-10 years have accumulated enough solar panels, batteries and other components to be self-sufficient. I have 500 watts of solar and around 200ah@12v thundersky batteries for temporary portable power. They kept the refrigerator going for 17 hours before they pooped out.

I'm talking Luke's recommendation that the Nickel Iron batteries are the way to go for a permanent solar installation.

 

[999zip999]

Yopapa, You must have had your bro. cut the power or those santa ana's plowing, with your wife's chardonnay getting warm to give you the green light on a new bank of batteries. How that happen ?-??? Great job or good luck. ?

 

[yopappamon]

I know, right?! If I had known that was all it would talk, I'd have hit that power pole myself.

 

[dogman dan]

For sure, if you have a smallish solar panel set up, a large battery bank could be a good compromise. Store energy till you have it full, then use smaller wattage daily while retaining the back up power. One problem I had with the rolling blackouts last winter, was having to jump up and run for more generator gas when the power was up. Couldn't buy more during the blackout.

Later on of course, as you add panels, you grow into your battery size and can use more of your juice daily.

 

[dak664]

The problem with a large battery bank is the self discharge. You can compensate for 85% charge efficiency, just get 15% more panels. But 1%/day self discharge gets multiplied by the bank capacity so a battery capacity that is 100x the amp-hour charge/day from the solar panels will take all the output just to stay charged. For energy storage you want low self discharge. As far as I can tell lithium ion batteries are the winner for that at <1%/month. New lead acid starts at 5%/month and get worse after every cycle, NiFe is 30%/month to begin with http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/alternate_battery_systems

 

[yopappamon]

Ok, let me see if I have the math right. So NiFe self discharges 1% per day. Let's say I have enough solar panels to recharge the pack to full each day. So let's say my capacity is Y per day, charge efficiency is 85%, and self discharge is 1%

So to recharge full capacity each day I would need 1.01 x Y to offset the self discharge, then figuring charge efficiency I would need another 1.1765 x Y. That's 1.1765=1/0.85 or I would have to put in 117.65% to get out 100%. Does that make sense?

1.175Y x 1.01Y = 1.188Y or I would need 18.8% extra capacity to make up for the loses.

The self discharge isn't too bad on a daily basis, but the charge efficiency is big.

 

[dak664]

The loss on charge efficiency is a one-time hit, but the loss on self-discharge keeps going and going. If 1 kW is just enough to maintain the battery bank then you need more like 2 kW to recharge it after use, or after a cloudy day. Once it is charged the extra kW is wasted unless you can divert it to some other purpose, but once you have diversion capability then you will likely wish the whole 2 kW were available.

The equivalent amount of storage having no self-discharge could be filled at any rate. A low charge efficiency will just increase the time needed for filling, after that there is no loss. If you only need it a few times a year you could get by with a couple hundred watts of PV, probably not enough to warrant a diversion load (although once you have the panels a dollar-a-watt grid-tie microinverter could give a 5-10 year payback, if it lasts that long).

 

[jonescg]

Sounds like the world's most reliable battery isn't as reliable as they make out. Doesn't anyone have a set of these for testing? I was under the impression that they were bullet proof, just low energy density.

 

[999zip999]

Yoyopa, Love the fact you are willing to take a tryson into a pole for some batteries. Coming back to So cal. in days E coast don't go out here you live close to paradise almost next to me will call if you want take your bike on my secrect beach at low tide I need your advise on my setup. D.C. Sucks... No sun a t high noon ? Get me out of hear. I will ask about those panel parts with luck as they are not for me it's mite be slow. Nothing personal. You live on the coastal hills not on the hill looking on the coast. Zip

 

[John in CR]

dak664,

If you use 50% of what you stored during the day, then your 1% self-discharge only costs you 2%, and really only about half of that which occurs after the panels shut down for the day. Overall charge efficiency is a much bigger matter in sizing your system. Only rare and special purpose installations would store the electricity long term where the 1%/day would be a significant factor.

 

[gestalt]

I wonder how much water it would take to provide a mechanical method of energy storage. Say you had a large hourglass shaped tank. Excess electricity generated is used to pump water from the bottom tank to the top. When there's no sun or perhaps wind power water from the top tank drives a turbine on it's way back to the bottom tank. A benefit in addition is that you also have a large supply of water in the event the city mains go down.

I seem to remember a discussion here about it in regards to it being used in a much larger scale for a whole town. But I don't remember if any of the wiz kids crunched some numbers.

 

[amberwolf]

Depends on the height of the tank and size of pipes flowing down from it. You can figure out what power you might get out various amounts of water at different flow rates, etc., using calculations for other gravity-fed water systems.

 

[pelle242]

Hydroelectric power plants do that on a regular basis, they pump up the water during the night when the load on the grid is low. Dont know how big the losses are but it probably only make sense if you also own a nuclear power plant...

 

[wineboyrider]

I wonder how much water it would take to provide a mechanical method of energy storage. Say you had a large hourglass shaped tank. Excess electricity generated is used to pump water from the bottom tank to the top. When there's no sun or perhaps wind power water from the top tank drives a turbine on it's way back to the bottom tank. A benefit in addition is that you also have a large supply of water in the event the city mains go down.

I seem to remember a discussion here about it in regards to it being used in a much larger scale for a whole town. But I don't remember if any of the wiz kids crunched some numbers.

This is done with large scale hydro electric projects in California, Oregon and Washington. Water is pumped to lakes at higher elevation and stored to be drained to lower elevation to provide power at peak times.....

 

[dogman dan]

Still think a battery able to store two days of normal sun is not a bad idea on a small system. Yeah yeah, you lose some every day, but you have a day or half a day in reserve for when the pole gets hit, sunny day or not. Upsize that plan to a large PV setup and of course doubling your cost of batteries becomes stupid.

Still think for emergency power, the first purchase should be a generator. It can be a tiny harbor freight 100 buck model if you like. But something cheap that can take 5 gal of stored gasoline and run at least your lights for days. Just having lights can make a big difference if the blackouts are going to last awhile. My large generator can warm the house, or cool it, plus my big freezer will NEVER have to get completely thawed. 2000w will run a freezer, window AC, electric radiator, etc. One at a time that is. Freezer will stay good if it runs 4 hours a day. This isn't an eco decision, just a no way I'm letting my freezer thaw when it's packed with meat from sams club decision.

Once that need is covered, then you can spend on batteries and such and hopefully avoid firing up the generator. Last year when we had a week of 50% of the day power, I looked like a genius to the neighbors with my generators cranking and fireplace roaring. That outage would have taken a hell of a lot of battery.

 

[yopappamon]

My goal is to be able to be off the grid eventually (if I choose to). The emergency power is a nice benefit but the pieces I'm accumulating is for the long term goal. It's going to be solar panels and a battery arrangement. I'm in sunny Southern California so heating is just a few logs in the fireplace. 50 degrees is about a cold as it gets here.

So with that in mind, what batteries would you all recommend? I like the life span of NiFe and that it's pretty hard to damage them.

 

[dak664]

dak664,

If you use 50% of what you stored during the day, then your 1% self-discharge only costs you 2%, and really only about half of that which occurs after the panels shut down for the day. Overall charge efficiency is a much bigger matter in sizing your system. Only rare and special purpose installations would store the electricity long term where the 1%/day would be a significant factor.

True, but the 1% loss is based on battery capacity, not daily PV output. If the battery can store 15 days of PV then you lose 15% of each daily output. Off-grid systems typically have 5 days of backup, which is 10 days of storage for lead-acid not to exceed 50% DOD. If NiFe can be used to 100% DOD then 5 days of storage would only lose 5% of daily output.

The loss is minimal if you are just time shifting daily production to night time use with a 1x storage capacity, and Edison batteries were used for mobile use under such circumstances. There the charging efficiency is more important, unless the charger power is too cheap to meter.

 

[wineboyrider]

One of the most practical applications for solar is the pumping of water. Many ranchers have already converted many former windmill water pumping stations to solar. Not exactly the liberal type either I might add, but in this case very economical. 8)
I thought about the idea of using a solar water station as a battery to produce electricity and water for the farm, but the height of the holding tank and size could be a problem. But, no doubt stored water can be your solar battery..
8)

 

[Bluefang]

If your looking into batteries for long term storage or large life cycles have you looked at Liquid batteries?

I would be looking into something like http://www.redflow.com.au/zbm_overview. Worst case scenario if the "liquid" stops holding charge, which it shouldn't you can just get it replaced fairly cheaply compared to new batteries.