Lead Acid vs LiFePO4

[wmgeorge]

Having a serious discussion on another web Forum from a guy stating because I chose LiFePO I and the rest on here are Battery Snobs his words! He said LA is better and cheaper and I was a fool and anyone else who does not see it his way was also the same. Yes I have searched, copied and pasted to no avail.

 

[backwoods]

smh leave the neophyte in his cave with his lead acid. I see this on rv forums as well.

 

[Wjm1964]

End of the day its all about preferences and situations. Some cant see past lead acid as it's probably all they are used too & know. Ignorance is bliss they say

 

[fratermus]

Horses for courses.

anyone else who does not see it his way was also the same

Plenty of mindless tribalism in both camps. I am reminded a bit of Swift's description of big-endian vs small-endian boiled egg holy wars.

 

[Sierra Nevada]

For 20 years I used lead acid, it was difficult to go with lifep04 (mentally) but I am glad I did. George

 

[houseofancients]

Having a serious discussion on another web Forum from a guy stating because I chose LiFePO I and the rest on here are Battery Snobs his words! He said LA is better and cheaper and I was a fool and anyone else who does not see it his way was also the same. Yes I have searched, copied and pasted to no avail.

"can't and shouldn't agrue with the dumb, nor with the foolish"

 

[WYtreasure]

Having a serious discussion on another web Forum from a guy stating because I chose LiFePO I and the rest on here are Battery Snobs his words! He said LA is better and cheaper and I was a fool and anyone else who does not see it his way was also the same. Yes I have searched, copied and pasted to no avail.

How serious can the discussion be?

 

[wmgeorge]

How serious can the discussion be?

Its all about the Cost thing.

 

[timselectric]

The difference in cost, depends on if you are talking about right now or over time.

 

[WindWizard]

I originally was going to go with 6 volt lead acid batteries. They are rated at 75 amps for 120 minutes. They cost about $110 each. So each battery has 900 watts or .122 per watt. I ended up purchasing 64 LFP Cells (280ah) for around $9500. That figures out to 57344 watts or .166 per watt.

Now you ask the real question would you pay 4 cents more per watt for LFP over Lead Acid?

Really a no brainer since the LA wear out in 3 years and the LFP will at least last 10 years and probably a lot more than that. That is why I quickly changed my thinking from Lead Acid to LFP.

 

[AKvalleyguy]

When I'm confronted with tribalism I just say "right on man, hope all goes well for you". Plus, if everyone abandoned FLA suddenly, the cost of LiFePO4 would rise dramatically

 

[AKvalleyguy]

The difference in cost, depends on if you are talking about right now or over time.

I don't know about that so much anymore. It gets into the ever present and contentious discussion of pre-built vs DIY. I DIY'ed a 48v LFP to replace some tired L16's. Ah for Ah, the LFP was slightly cheaper. I do agree that pre-built LFP is much more costly so I'm just tossing that out there for fun facts.

 

[timselectric]

My next battery bank expansion, is probably going to be diy. Because the cost savings is very appealing.
It's $4k cheaper, for 30kwh.

 

[joanna_lannie]

There is a lot of debate about this. People who like lead-acid batteries will try their best to discredit LiFePO4 batteries, and people who like LiFePO4 batteries will try their best to discredit lead-acid batteries. If you want cheap and you don't use them very often, lead-acid batteries are super good and you don't have to spend the extra money. If you want the best performance then LiFePO4 batteries are good, the LiFePO4 battery safety is great and durable.

 

[wattmatters]

I'm hoping to marry LA and LiFePO4 together.

 

[DerpsyDoodler]

Having a serious discussion on another web Forum from a guy stating because I chose LiFePO I and the rest on here are Battery Snobs his words! He said LA is better and cheaper and I was a fool and anyone else who does not see it his way was also the same. Yes I have searched, copied and pasted to no avail.

Lead Acid still has its niche uses, and I believe will continue to have those for a long time. They're suited to operation in a wide range of
temperatures and readily available.

First notion might be that they're cheaper, but in the long run they are not. LifePo4 has a much longer life expectancy and can be cycled down to their full rated capacity without fear of damaging the cells or shortening their rated life span. Furthermore, even once they've reached their rated cycle life, the degradation is only ~20% and they can still be safely used. And yet even furthermore, they are safe for installation in habitable environments.

Seriously, for anyone capable of independent intelligent thought and/or accurate independent critical analysis, LFP is a no-brainer, unless their need calls for a niche use case of LA (or some other chemistry).

 

[Rednecktek]

Seriously, for anyone capable of independent intelligent thought and/or accurate independent critical analysis, LFP is a no-brainer, unless their need calls for a niche use case of LA (or some other chemistry).

And for those of us WITH those needs just look longingly at batteries and wish THEY could play with the LFP cool kids too.

 

[wattmatters]

unless their need calls for a niche use case of LA

My banks of SLA batteries' primary function is as a backup store of energy for when we have a grid outage. They spend their lives on float mostly during the day, rest overnight, and are ready to jump into action as soon as we have a grid outage. They are purpose built for that very task in data/telco centres and by getting from there I was able to access a pretty decent chunk of capacity for not a lot of $.

I don't care about number of cycles as they are hardly cycled and they'll age naturally first, at which point they can go to the battery/lead recycler. Using LiFePO4 for that job just seems an extravagant waste.

I am however considering adding some more functionality to my system, having it manage regular overnight household loads but I won't do that until I add some LiFePO4 to the mix so it can manage the daily cycling task while the lead sits there ready for backup duties. 5-6 kWh worth would do the job nicely.

 

[Biasjo]

My banks of SLA batteries' primary function is as a backup store of energy for when we have a grid outage. They spend their lives on float mostly during the day, rest overnight, and are ready to jump into action as soon as we have a grid outage. They are purpose built for that very task in data/telco centres and by getting from there I was able to access a pretty decent chunk of capacity for not a lot of $.

I don't care about number of cycles as they are hardly cycled and they'll age naturally first, at which point they can go to the battery/lead recycler. Using LiFePO4 for that job just seems an extravagant waste.

I am however considering adding some more functionality to my system, having it manage regular overnight household loads but I won't do that until I add some LiFePO4 to the mix so it can manage the daily cycling task while the lead sits there ready for backup duties. 5-6 kWh worth would do the job nicely.

One of the facilities I consulted for just went from giant 2v Commercial C&D FLA to Lifepo4. They eliminated about 5 rooms of batteries.

I wish I could have taken those FLA off their hands because I know they just gave them away but contractors aren’t allowed to benefit from such things.

 

[Rednecktek]

About the only reason NOT to use LFP over FLA would be environmental concerns (your batteries will be StupidHot/StupidCold) or finances (Power NOW or no power for 3 years).

I, unfortunately, have both those considerations.