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Lithium Batteries

AzTonopah

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Joined
Sep 25, 2019
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41
I know everyone one is on the lithium battery band wagon. I know they far out do the lead acid batteries but for us poor folks, the cost is too great and dont see the cost coming anytime coming down... just going up.
 
The cost of lithium batteries has dropped a lot in the past 10 years. Is the current price near the lowest point? Possibly, if no major changes to manufacturing or battery efficiency is made.
isuppli-081611-lithium-battery-price-parity-illo.png


Another fun graph going back to 1991.
li-ion-battery-cost-graph-from-doe-2011.jpg
 
Several new factories are also coming online within the next 2 years including in Europe, North America and Australia so hopefully that will continue the price drops. Another good thing, is now that companies like VW are finally moving into EV's in a serious way we will see an increase in available salvaged EV batteries coming onto the market as well as going into factory built refurbished power storage units.
 
Remember 15 years ago, 2004, TV's were huge heavy expensive boxes and we all dreamed of flat screens that could be mounted on a wall...but they were many thousands of dollars and hard to find? Did you think then that in just 10 years you'd be able to walk into a Walmart and pick one up for under $100?

For the last half century batteries improved very little, because there wasn't much demand for better technologies. That has changed, and I think in 10 years we will be walking out of wallyworld with our $50/kwh lithium battery in hand.

I'm in no rush to pay thousands of dollars to be a guinea pig for all those questionable China lithium "factories" popping up by the thousands. I want to wait till the wheat separates from the chaff, and prices to get realistic.

I've been using Li-ions for over 10 years now in applications that absolutely need the best technology, and it's worth every penny...but I've stuck with more cost effective LA's for my large "simple" storage needs. That should change pretty soon.
 
I'm in no rush to pay thousands of dollars...
I have to admit, this is just how I feel too. The price of the lithium battery buys an awful lot of power from the grid right now, one battery at $700 would pay my electric bill for almost a year.

For now, LA does what I need it to, and I can easily live within it's constraints.
 
Do you think these factories from LG, Panasonic, Northvolt (Europe & VW partner) who are building factories in Europe & USA are cheapo Chinese knock off specialists ? It's always important to know the vendor / supplier and the quality of their products but if someone is willing to accept "No Name Brand" well.... that old saying of "you get what you pay for" can apply right alongside of "Buyer Beware". That being said, many companies like CATL produce only high quality products that get their label on them, anything that doesn't cut it goes to secondary tier market and "unbadged". One must be careful when using a Broad Brush to paint fine lines.
 
Do you think these factories from LG, Panasonic, Northvolt (Europe & VW partner) who are building factories in Europe & USA are cheapo Chinese knock off specialists ? ..

If that question was directed at me, of course not. But they are a few of the small handful of legit manufacturers out there right now in a sea of thousands of shady startups, and they cost much more than the Ali-Express crap that everyone here talks about. That's the wheat/chaff that will be separated shortly.
 
If that question was directed at me, of course not. But they are a few of the small handful of legit manufacturers out there right now in a sea of thousands of shady startups, and they cost much more than the Ali-Express crap that everyone here talks about. That's the wheat/chaff that will be separated shortly.
You as in a "general reference" not specifically aimed at anyone. There will always be charlatans & huckster's and the tricks & tactics they use never changes but people forget how to spot them.
 
Cost is relative to the utility you get from the product. You can buy a (very heavy) $200 lead acid battery that will last you 2 years or a (very light) $600 lithium battery that will last you 10 years. TODAY, the lead acid is less expensive. Over 10 years, the lithium is less expensive. (Note that I did not say "cheaper". Cheap has to do with quality, not price.)

As far as "Ali Express crap", does it matter where I buy my Les Paul Standard or just that Gibson made it? If you go to "Bob the Battery Boy" and buy a Battle Born battery, do you think Bob made the battery? So what's the difference who the reseller is? I went through Ali because they had the Ruixu battery I wanted, in stock, and shipped it free. It took 17 days to get here, but I was not then (nor am I now) in any rush. Not following the bad mouthing regarding buying wherever you can find a product. I prefer to buy American too, but when buying American costs me 30% more, I will go where the bargain is.

As to the Gibson guitar analogy, yes, there are knockoffs represented as authentic, but there are also things to look at on a guitar to know if it is a Gibson or a Gibsun, which is what the Chinese sell. (The tailpiece, the tuners, the bridge position....) I bought that battery from Ali based on Will's video blessing of the Ruixu battery. Because it came from a distributor in the land of fried rice and eggrolls doesn't mean it's a knockoff.
 
I prefer to buy American too, but when buying American costs me 30% more, I will go where the bargain is.
Try that in Canada ! Sometimes the markup difference is well over 100% (not currency related). When I could buy a simple Square D 2 slot AC Sub-panel at HomeDepot USA for $17 but at HomeDepot Canada the exact same thing is $75 ! and it's made in Canada to boot... screaming blue blazes doesn't help, you go elsewhere. Seen up to 600% price difference on some things and it's all TRADE WAR BULL HOOEY, screwing the everyday John & Jane Customer which is only putting Duty Money into the government coffers while pushing consumer costs up. Duties are a PRE-TAX on the products you buy because it's absorbed, added on and passed to the Retail MSRP sticker.
 
I really enjoy the way Will presents the facts and helps to understand what your options are. I recently bought three ( Valence Lithium Battery U27-12XP | 12V 138AH 1.766 kWh ) off of eBay for $475 each. To me that was a steal, based on 138AH each. I'm upgrading my electrical system in my 5th wheel so I can enjoy camping more. With these three batteries in parallel I now have 414AH. Which replaces 225AH of two 6 volt golf cart lead acid batteries. I'm retired after 45 years of dragging RV's around following the construction trade. So I guess you could say I have a little experience of playing with lead acid batteries. So when Lithium Iron Phosphate came along I started really paying attention. Now I agree with a lot of you when you were over whelmed by the prices of Battle Born and others for their 100AH batteries. Don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming the quality of these top end batteries. But they are real hard to justify that initial out of pocket cost for the average working person. So when Will made that YouTube video about those little 40AH Valence batteries out of medical equipment. The door opened to reasonable priced good quality batteries for me. I started exploring eBay and found these big ones. Now if you take the approximate $1500 for three of these batteries and run it through a PayPal credit account. They qualify for 24 months of interest free financing with equal payments of approximately $65 per month. Now they are affordable. So I built a test board like Will does in his videos. So I could test these in the house this winter and get all of the bugs worked out before I install in the 5th wheel come spring. I'm powering my pellet stove this winter as good source of load. I'm using a 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter just like the one Will shows in his videos. I'm monitoring with a Victron BMV-712 , just like Will showed in one of his videos I'm using a 220 Amp Victron Battery Protect to make sure and keep everything under control. For my 1st test I charged the batteries fully up to 14.6 volts, per the Valence spec sheet. Let them set over night to level out and checked the voltage with my Fluke 87 and compared the readings on the Victron BMV-712. They read 14.1 volts at rest. I plugged the pellet stove and a box fan into the inverter and and turned the inverter on. I set the thermostat on the pellet stove where we regularly have it for comfort. It's heating 1925 sq ft. When it starts it has a fan that begins the cycle inside of the stove. It pulls 150 watts DC = 6.5 amps DC. Next the igniter kicks in and the draw jumps to 460 watts DC. The igniter stays on for 3-4 minutes and then shuts down. after the stove heats up for about 10 minutes, a second internal fan starts up and now the DC draw is about 11 amps steady to feed the inverter. The stove will run for about 1 1/2 hours per cycle. Then it shuts down for about an hour. I ran the initial test for 72 hours straight without charging the batteries. The BMV-712 said that 331AH had been drawn from the batteries. The batteries measured 12.74 volts. I stopped the test at that point and charged the batteries back up. This has convinced me that I can camp for at least three days without charging. But I have a 1000 watts of solar so I think these batteries will easily out perform the old lead acid batteries.
 
Try that in Canada ! Sometimes the markup difference is well over 100% (not currency related).

What I saw in Canada that made me go "WHAAAAAAAT???" was houses that cost $65k here are $275k there. Tiny little 700 sq ft bungalow type houses, very ordinary, and 4 times what the same house would cost here in Ohio. I fell in love with the road in Fort Erie that runs along the river. Until I bought a paper and saw what those houses cost. No thanks. Apparently everything is like that up north.
 
Fort Erie
That's your answer right there, certain areas are expensive then other's are on another planet (Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria). I'm near "Algonquin Park" and prices around here are great ! There's a LOT not far from me, 15 acres, mixed forest, access to wetlands & river (property edge) 300' road frontage with power/phone there Selling Price 15K ! no restraints. My own property, 3 acres, South Face of ridge 1200' over a 3 point valley, no neighbours (unless you count, moose, deer & Turkey's) 30KM from a village, power lines & phone 1km away (and staying there) cost me just under $12K. Cleared & built my place myself (99.5% DIY) on there...
 
Im really sold on Lithium Prismatic cells from WInston and Calb for quality and close to 8 years of testing etc that I've seen here. Unfortunately when I started looking at them 6 years ago the price was $ 1.75a/h (AUD) so 4 cells at $175 (100 ah) was $700. We were nearly on parity with the american dollar then and all sales were in US dollars then. A guy north of me sells them. Due to changes in the dollar they are $1.85 a/h (AUD) now so a 12 volt bank of 4 (4S) would be $740 (AUD). Some small cells are way cheaper and new prismatics cells are coming out but it will be a while before we know the quality of these cheaper cells (most of them seem to be blue). On the other hand solar has come down a massive amount. Surely there is a way we can store extra electricity as a gas or potential energy of some kind. If we pump water up hill how efficiently can we get that energy back when it runs back down the hill?
 
Several power and water utilities in mountain areas use the water height storage scheme.

.

And I have seen a setup here in California where they pmp the water up during low electric demand time, and it flows down the other side of the mountain where it needs to go anyways, so the power it generates through the turbine during peak power demand time is basically free power. Sure they paid to pump the water up, but they needed to pump it no mater what.

But I won't be adding a home water tower anytime soon.

Lithium batteries are getting a bit cheaper, and when you figure in that they last at least 3 times as many cycles as LA, the true cost is already cheaper. Then get some good second hand cells from the EV industry, and the cost is even less. We can now get solid cells for under US$100 / KWH
 
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