More on battery management [RE-wrenches]

[Joel Davidson]

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Hi Windy,

I'm working on Sunday too, but I have a few minutes here at the Honolulu airport waiting for the flight to Kona to attend the IEEE PV conference to get my mental and physical batteries recharged. Working in PV sure beats other kinds of work.

I like between 2.4 and 2.46 volts/cell for flooded lead antimony batteries with a nice equalization charge every 2 to 4 months depending on system configuration and use. Batteries and people thrive or die depending on how their electro-chemical processes function. Batteries, like living things, need special care and feeding in different situations. While anthropomorphizing batteries may seem simplistic, the human/battery comparison is an easy-to-understand way for users to think about the critters being fed by their solar panels.

Aloha,
Joel Davidson

-----Original Message-----
>From: Windy Dankoff <windydankoff at mac.com>
>Sent: May 7, 2006 8:43 AM
>To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
>Subject: Re: More on battery management [RE-wrenches]
>
>Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor:
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>Is your computer freezing up or slowing down?
>Repair corrupt files and harmful errors - protect your PC
>Take a 2-minute PC health check-up at no charge!
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>
>Joel, Kelly,
>
>The manual you refer to is written from the conventional assumption  
>of 27/7 utility-supplied power to charge batteries. It is typical of  
>the advice also given by battery manufacturers who are not  
>specifically oriented to RE. Stand-alone RE charging requires  
>different timing and voltage strategies.  Anyone who deals with  
>batteries should have this manual (and similar information), but  
>should understand that it does not fully address our situations.
>
>We push the charging faster, in order to "get it while we can". Many  
>flooded battery installations suffer from max. voltage set-points of  
>about 14.2V because that's what the battery manufacturer recommended.  
>That's fine when you have full charge power from a wall socket and  
>can take a few extra hours to gently charge the batteries. In an RE  
>system it must be 14.7 or 14.8V, or else the charge current is  
>tapering off, and the battery is not fully absorbing the last hours  
>of available sunlight. Or, it is  not charging as much as possible  
>before the generator is turned off for the sake of peace and quiet or  
>economy.
>
>We push battery charging beyond the conventional comfort level that  
>is optimum in a utility-charging scheme. This is a compromise, but it  
>is MUCH more desirable than attaining a 75% charge by wasting  
>precious solar power, on a day that it could have been pushed to 95%  
>by delaying the voltage regulation.
>
>Windy
>
>> From: "Joel  Davidson" <joeldavidson at earthlink.net>
>>
>> Hello Kelly,
>> The Battery Council International's Battery Service Manual is a  
>> good info
>> source. Available at
>> http://www.batterycouncil.org/BCIServiceManualForm02.pdf or for  
>> free from
>> many battery suppliers.
>> Joel Davidson
>
>
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