New YIYEN 20.5Kwh Battery

[fgamache]

Hello all --

As the price of LiFePo4 batteries in North America still brings tears to my eyes, I imported a 20.5Kwh battery from YIYEN, a mainland China company, for my off-grid house off the coast of British Columbia. Cost was USD$7,265 plus $350 freight plus a bunch of import charges into Canada.

I was able to find a few reviews on that company and their products & batteries on other forums but it was a bit of a leap of faith for me... Yiyen was good with communication, the packaging was awesome, the battery is very solid and looks good and I did "lift the hood" to take a peak at one of the modules but I was forbidden to disect "our" new battery any further lol.

 

[TommyD]

I am also off grid in B.C.; What is the balance of the system?

 

[fgamache]

I'm on Gabriola Island close to Nanaimo.

I have a 48v system with:
5.6Kw PV (18x310w)
PT-100 charge controller
2x MS-4448PAE inverter/chargers
20.5Kwh LiFePo4 battery
11Kw Generac generator
AGS, BMK, ARTR
All Magnum stuff.

 

[TommyD]

Good sized System! Nice I will be looking for LFP Batteries; seems so many Vendors to choose from? Would be nice to find a a good reliable one! I hope you have found one.

 

[Steve_S]

Hello all --

As the price of LiFePo4 batteries in North America still brings tears to my eyes, I imported a 20.5Kwh battery from YIYEN, a mainland China company, for my off-grid house off the coast of British Columbia. Cost was USD$7,265 plus $350 freight plus a bunch of import charges into Canada.

I was able to find a few reviews on that company and their products & batteries on other forums but it was a bit of a leap of faith for me... Yiyen was good with communication, the packaging was awesome, the battery is very solid and looks good and I did "lift the hood" to take a peak at one of the modules but I was forbidden to disect "our" new battery any further lol.
~snip

Those look pretty darn good IMO. I have one of Yiyen's APC Inverter/Chargers (it's a backup unit) and while It is a "value" unit it is quite well made and certainly performs as intended (albeit it's an older model {5 yrs} and has some limits) and works well with Lead Batteries. - hence it's being repurposed to the Greenhouse once it's built this spring. I considered their battery packs but felt they were on the high side. What you show us there looks quite good and compared to some other offerings available, a heck of a lot better than some ! I'm presently running 22kwh (gross) of Lead and just putting together the 21kwh of LFP and once complete Lead heads towards the Greenhouse side. Luckily I am 24VDC so only half the cells needed.

I hope you keep the thread updated and let us know how these battery packs behave & perform, could be a very good option for many folks.
PS: SHAME ON YOU !!! not providing links... hehehehe, luckily Yiyen is in my bookmarks.

25.6Kwh Energy Storage System LiFePO4 battery pack - YIY | Yiyen Electric

www.yiyen.com

 

[Supervstech]

$8K for 25ishKWh... not terrible for sure. Way out of my current price range... but under $313/KW is good... I wanna see under $200 for new balancing, BMSequipped with monitoring... more like $150/... with a 10year no hassle warranty... delivered.

One can hope right?

 

[TommyD]

Maybe this can morph into a discussion for those of us interested in buying preassembled LFP Batteries? As I mentioned in another post, the economics not really there when you need to buy 32 to 48 cells, BMS(s), build a battery box, etc. My goal is to find a great vendor, who discloses the manufacturer of the cells and BMS they use so we can have confidence in the quality of product we will receive. Appears fgsmache has found one.

 

[JoeHam]

Well the 5.12 kWh looks interesting as well.

5.12Kwh Energy Storage System LiFePO4 battery pack - YIY | Yiyen Electric

www.yiyen.com

They build it as 16s2p or 8s4p depending on what voltage you want.

BMS management screen shot looks good near the bottom of the page.

 

[TommyD]

Was looking at 3 of these Batteries from RJ Energy China; $7400 USD delivered to Vancouver. 28.8 kWh at 48 v - 600 Ah. Mark of RJ Energy advised that they make their own cells and design their own BMS and then have them built to their specifications.

 

[jasonhc73]

This has the Inverter and charger also, right?

That is a really excellent total package system.

Do you get to monitor the system on a PC or web page?

 

[TommyD]

No, this is for Batteries only though I did notice that YIY does offer that kind of package.

 

[jasonhc73]

I really like how they don't try to push the 3.65V extreme, 3.55V is very usable! They do the very bottom to 2.5V though, but with all new cells, that's not a big deal. If you self limit the bottom end voltage and keep the system in a human comfortable environment, there is practically no reason for these packs/system to get way more than the rated 3500 cycles.

It's kind of neat that they are choosing smaller cells, just 50 ah.

 

[fgamache]

Was looking at 3 of these Batteries from RJ Energy China; $7400 USD delivered to Vancouver. 28.8 kWh at 48 v - 600 Ah. Mark of RJ Energy advised that they make their own cells and design their own BMS and then have them built to their specifications.

All I can say is if you're going to import into Vancouver (like I did) do your homework and understand all the fees that will be added on this side of the ocean! When I bought from Yiyen I paid them for shipping but still had over $2K in fees to agent/broker/CRA/wharehouse etc. once the battery got here....

 

[fgamache]

This has the Inverter and charger also, right?

That is a really excellent total package system.

Do you get to monitor the system on a PC or web page?

Yiyen batteries have a LCD screen that displays, for each 5Kwh pack: the voltage of each cell, 4 temp sensors, low/high temp, low/high volts, cycles, etc. They also offer a PC-based program for viewing this info via CAN connection and (maybe?) historical data... I just have the LCD module.

 

[TommyD]

All I can say is if you're going to import into Vancouver (like I did) do your homework and understand all the fees that will be added on this side of the ocean! When I bought from Yiyen I paid them for shipping but still had over $2K in fees to agent/broker/CRA/wharehouse etc. once the battery got here....

WOW! I just assumed that when they got to Vancouver, that was it! What you are saying makes total sense; I appreciate the warning; like another 25-30 % more; that certainly changes the economics!

 

[fgamache]

Yeah, welcome to my world lol. Here is a detail of the slew of fees I had to cough-up:

Import Duty $700.59
GST $535.45
PST $700.59
Brokerage fee $256.75
Priority HS Fee $7.40
Processing Fee $60.00
Bond Fee $50.00
GST on Brokerage: $18.71
PST on Brokerage: $26.19
Dock charge $45.00
Origin documentation charge $100
Peak season surcharge $41.14
Security surcharge $34.00
CBSA Inspection fee $93.00
Agen admin fee $20.40
Forwarding to final destination $393.10

Like you say, changes the economics a bit lol.

 

[KauaiMolokai]

Yeah, unless the item is too heavy for Fedex/DHL, I found out the hard way that ordering by ocean freight is more expensive than Fedex door to door air, and a LOT slower. The big guys avoid almost all these ocean/port fees by having the container sent direct to their own warehouse.

 

[fgamache]

Yup. But at 375Kg there wasn't much of an option. Just getting the darn thing into the basement was a challenge lol!

 

[Steve_S]

Yeah, welcome to my world lol. Here is a detail of the slew of fees I had to cough-up:

Import Duty $700.59
GST $535.45
PST $700.59
Brokerage fee $256.75
Priority HS Fee $7.40
Processing Fee $60.00
Bond Fee $50.00
GST on Brokerage: $18.71
PST on Brokerage: $26.19
Dock charge $45.00
Origin documentation charge $100
Peak season surcharge $41.14
Security surcharge $34.00
CBSA Inspection fee $93.00
Agen admin fee $20.40
Forwarding to final destination $393.10

Like you say, changes the economics a bit lol.

Geez, they didn't add a Fuel Surcharge to that list of insanity... talk about fingers in the pie eh !
You're stuck though because it is 375kg / 826 Lbs and there is no options for that.... I suppose you could air freight that but at 3x the total cost I'd imagine. Doesn't it make you want too upchuck ?

 

[JoeHam]

Yup. But at 375Kg there wasn't much of an option. Just getting the darn thing into the basement was a challenge lol!

Yep. When I got my big gun safe in the basement I decided it will need to stay with the house forever, no bringing that back upstairs. ?