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Solar Battery Cost Analysis

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Has anyone done or is there a link to a cost analysis of batteries available in South Africa based on a Rand/kWh/cycle basis as per this example I found on a European website? Watt it all comes down to.

Screenshot 2016-06-22 18.43.47.jpg

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  • I attended a very informative lecture on energy yesterday. It was presented by a very knowledgeable industry energy consultant. He does a lot of analysis on the energy market locally and globally, w

  • Gerald_db
    Gerald_db

    Actually allowing for temp is around 3000 cycles to 40% dod therefore (12x200x.4x3000)/1000=2880kWh. Ie R2.4 per kwh. In warmer areas around 2800 cycles to 40%. Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

  • I too have googled into that result. There appears to be two schools of thought: 1. How many times can I discharge it to x% before it only has 80% of its capacity left. 2. How many times can

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FWIW. T105RE's are at the most, today, R2600 each.

The biggest problem with this is twofold: 1) Prices are generally tied to Rand/Dollar exchange and price on demand so it fluctuates a lot. And most suppliers have different levels of markup. Ideally this should be done with dealer pricing, or a set margin of say 10% to get an accurate table of costs. 

  • Author

Going to go with 2 x 8 x T105RE's. Most cost effective and cycled to 25% DoD should give me 10 years and hopefully by then new technology has killed the price of storage. Other option is 8 x T105RE's and just to kill them in 4 years or so and hope the lithium's have plunged by then.

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FWIW. T105RE's are at the most, today, R2600 each.

What size ?

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1 hour ago, Manie said:

What size ?

6v 225ah - 1600 cycles to 50% DOD.

Thanks Jaco

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  • Author

@Manie. To use 1 bank of 48v and cycle hard and hope that there is a cost effective 20 year new generation battery in 3 or 4 years when they are tired or 2 x 48v strings that could ne good for 10 years or more is the decision to be made.

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9 minutes ago, Gerald_db said:

... cost effective 20 year new generation battery in 3 or 4 years ...

My gut feel says 10-20 years, measuring against me saying same 5 years back.

My gut feel says 10-20 years, measuring against me saying same 5 years back.

I also simply do not see this happening. The "man" has too many vested interests in this not happening. [emoji85] [emoji86] [emoji87]

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@Manie. To use 1 bank of 48v and cycle hard and hope that there is a cost effective 20 year new generation battery in 3 or 4 years when they are tired or 2 x 48v strings that could ne good for 10 years or more is the decision to be made.

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Hi Gerald did you have a look at the lead crystals. I know it is expensive but you can get alot more cycles out of the batteries and its very save. You can cycle it alot deeper that other batteries.

I see at pv out that extra pannels makes a huge difference. Well done. What type/makes batteries do you have?

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@Gerald_db lead crystals 20% dod = 6528 cycles and on 40% dod = 3672 cycles

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See the 150ah 12 volt is going for R6900

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I can get 12v 200ah lead crystals at around R6200excl ex Cape Town

Awesome price . Deltec?

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13 hours ago, Manie said:

Deltec

Careful. Cycle life on the Deltec is much lower than on the Betta Battery. Consult with the spec sheets. I may be wrong, but the last time I checked the Deltecs were somewhat disappointing, hardly doing much better than our benchmark Trojan :-)

If i looked at at the specs. Seems Deltec is the better one

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9 hours ago, Manie said:

Seems Deltec is the better one

What numbers are you seeing? It's quite likely that I have the wrong end of the stick, this is just what I remember. I saw the price and cheered up, then I saw the cycle life and lost all that cheer. Let me see if I can find it again.

<insert Saxopohone music here>

Here we go... http://www.battery-pmp.co.za/Deltec-Lead-Crystal-Batteries.pdf

Page 5, second chart on the left. Around 1600 cycles to 50%. Same as Trojan T105RE.

<Insert more Kenny G here>

http://www.solarsolved.co.za/datasheets/batteries/Deltec/Lead_Crystal_6_CNFJ_200.pdf

Page 2, second chart down on the right. Around 3200 cycles to 50%. That's double.

If there is another spec sheet I should see, please send it to me. The above two are the reason I dismissed the Deltec as a possible option.

So basically, if you can get me 3000 cycles at less than 7k, the math is as follows:

12*200*0.5*3000 = 3600 kwh over lifetime

7000/3600 = Less than R2 a kwh (without even doing the math)...

If it can only do half that cycle life, then price is over R3 per kwh and lead acid wins.

:-)

Deltec is an official distributor of Lead Crystal batteries in South Africa. Instead of having a Betta Batteries label, they are re-branded to display Deltec's logo as they are an official supplier. Deltec's data sheet is however incorrect if I am not mistaken (they have been notified). Rather get your data sheets from the Lead Crystal website. You will also see Deltec's details under the Africa distribution link.

http://leadcrystalbatteries.com/distribution/distributors-in-africa/

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