Sam Cho TX
Solar Enthusiast
This was all the hype last year, cheaper than Lithium Ion and close to LFP in terms of capacity/size.
Whatever happened to sodium-ion batteries?
- Thread starter Sam Cho TX
- Start date
zanydroid
Solar Wizard
Aren’t they supposedly ramping up at scale for domestic EVs in China?
I don’t know that I’ve heard the “matches LFP” in many places. They’re being paired with LFP in those EVs. If they actually were a drop-in performance match with LFP they would just displace them.
I don’t know that I’ve heard the “matches LFP” in many places. They’re being paired with LFP in those EVs. If they actually were a drop-in performance match with LFP they would just displace them.
K2mannn
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2022
- Messages
- 19
I have 39 Aquion sodium ion 48V batteries now. They were given to me by two different friends who were upgrading to Li-ion (Simpliphi) batteries. They spent about $1k/kWh on the Simpliphi batteries. The one batch of 21 had been sitting for 2 years under a tarp, getting wet because the tarp leaked. The others sat under the same leaky tarp for several months before I got a shed built to house them all. They are about 36" tall and about 12"x12" footprint. And 260 lbs. each. Thankfully I have a tractor with a front end loader and could set them into place without straining my back. Except that I had to scoot them around to get them all crammed into a 12'x12' shed.
They were rated at 2.2kWh each - so I had a potential 85kWh of storage there. For free. I culled out 11 of them - wouldn't hold a charge, so the remaining 28 I connected to a dozen PV panels and a Sol-Ark 12k system. They worked well for a couple years, but now they are good for maybe 5kWh, so I wake up and my system is off, waiting for the sun to shine.
I never found out a whole lot about the batteries, Aquion went bankrupt, reformed and wouldn't have anything to do with the old batteries. They have pretty hi internal resistance now.
I am trying to charge them with an EG4 5kW Chargeverter now, but the max voltage output of the Chargeverter is 57.0V, and I can only get the charger to push about 2kW into the batteries, but that decreases in a few minutes to average about 1kWh/hr into the batteries.
They were rated at 2.2kWh each - so I had a potential 85kWh of storage there. For free. I culled out 11 of them - wouldn't hold a charge, so the remaining 28 I connected to a dozen PV panels and a Sol-Ark 12k system. They worked well for a couple years, but now they are good for maybe 5kWh, so I wake up and my system is off, waiting for the sun to shine.
I never found out a whole lot about the batteries, Aquion went bankrupt, reformed and wouldn't have anything to do with the old batteries. They have pretty hi internal resistance now.
I am trying to charge them with an EG4 5kW Chargeverter now, but the max voltage output of the Chargeverter is 57.0V, and I can only get the charger to push about 2kW into the batteries, but that decreases in a few minutes to average about 1kWh/hr into the batteries.
K2mannn
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2022
- Messages
- 19
Yes, I think the Aquion's have met their end of life. They are not serviceable, and I've never tried to disassemble one, but I may do that and post photos and what I find here (may have to wait until I run out of things to do - ha!).
and my generator is running right now feeding my EG4 Chargeverter (sun is just coming up, big cloud bank in the way). Our power went off at 5am this morning. I don't have a meter on my usage (not sure why Sol-Ark wouldn't have a meter display on the front panel of my 12k), but since I'm thinking about it, here's my loads overnight:
a 28 cu.ft. new refrigerator (I put a meter on it, runs about 1kWh a day, so 42W average, a 15 cu.ft. chest freezer - forgot for sure, but seems like it was about what the frig was, so 42W there, 40W continuous UV water sterilizer, and a Starlink system (about 100W average I think) all running overnight. Plus we probably have 50W of lights on until we go to bed. Sunset is now 6:45 pm and there's Maunakea making it a little earlier), so 50W of light for 4 hours = 200Wh there. I'll figure we are using batteries about 12 hours a day. So that's (42+42+40+100)*12 + 200 = 2,888Wh, so maybe only 3kWh. Oh, forgot the water pump - a ¾ hp pumping out of a catchment tank - it probably runs for no more than 10 minutes at less than 1000W = 167 Wh so just over 3 kWh of storage. Pretty bad!
and my generator is running right now feeding my EG4 Chargeverter (sun is just coming up, big cloud bank in the way). Our power went off at 5am this morning. I don't have a meter on my usage (not sure why Sol-Ark wouldn't have a meter display on the front panel of my 12k), but since I'm thinking about it, here's my loads overnight:
a 28 cu.ft. new refrigerator (I put a meter on it, runs about 1kWh a day, so 42W average, a 15 cu.ft. chest freezer - forgot for sure, but seems like it was about what the frig was, so 42W there, 40W continuous UV water sterilizer, and a Starlink system (about 100W average I think) all running overnight. Plus we probably have 50W of lights on until we go to bed. Sunset is now 6:45 pm and there's Maunakea making it a little earlier), so 50W of light for 4 hours = 200Wh there. I'll figure we are using batteries about 12 hours a day. So that's (42+42+40+100)*12 + 200 = 2,888Wh, so maybe only 3kWh. Oh, forgot the water pump - a ¾ hp pumping out of a catchment tank - it probably runs for no more than 10 minutes at less than 1000W = 167 Wh so just over 3 kWh of storage. Pretty bad!
agarg
New Member
Have you run out of things to do? Yet.... LOL.
Eager to find what you learn.
