diy solar

diy solar

Battery pack cost analysis

Razrburn

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Joined
Sep 6, 2021
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I installed 600watts of solar over the porch. I currently have 300watts hooked up out of the 600watts into 2x Walmart everstart dc24 deep cycle batteries 12v 100a ea at about 80$ a piece. I live in Texas and last winter the power grid collapsed, I'm looking at battery capacity and

Going over the math 160$ of batteries
Should get around 300 cycles everstart doesn't have specs so I'm figuring
12v X 200a = 2,400 watts. At 50% DOD 1200 watts X 300 = 360kw
160$ / 360kw in service life = .45¢ a kw@50% DOD
Or
28¢ / kw at 80% DOD and 300 cycles.

It's performance is probably going to be near .45¢ a kw as a estimate.
My local utility sells power for about .10¢ a kw, and I didn't figure any other hardware costs. I understand if I go to lithium it's cheaper over the life of the battery but still around .10¢ a kw.
But lithium is very flameable and doesn't handle heat well. Just watched a 1hr and 15min video on lithium and the engineering requirements behind it's application and the processes that cause it's failure go beyond what I'd expect a Chinese company to consider while designing a battery management system.
You know..
The same place that sells pwm solar charge controllers with mppt printed on the plastic controller

Im interested in anything maybe in the realm of diy that can be rebuilt as the batteries age, or expanded for future needs.

I can cast lead, but it's toxic and am looking for something maybe outside the box. Ni-fe seems awesome but cost seem high. Reviews seem to say the ones made now a days are junk

Saltwater Sodium ion seems ideal.
Redox flow batteries seem to cost fairly high but are interesting concepts.

I'm even considering pumping a freeze resistant fluid up hill to recover through a hydro electric process. I'm just looking for a storage system I can scale up that might have a lower cost than my utility
 
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