battery costs rising [RE-wrenches]

[John Raynes]

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Wrenches,

This battery thread kind of tailed off three weeks or so ago, but I just 
received some information today in the mail that is pertinent.

We got a letter from MK (which is also East Penn/Deka), informing us that 
batteries are going up again on December 3, 2007.  The letter says that all 
batteries will increase by a minimum of 12%, and some small sealed AGMs may 
go up as much as 40%.  The explanation is additional increases in the 
prices of lead, for which they provide some detail.  Most suppliers have 
been telling us that prices should be settling down for now, apparently 
they haven't.

While I'm certainly not pleased about additional price increases, and I'm 
not altogether happy with the design of the Deka flooded batteries, this 
type of communication causes me to want to remain with them as our primary 
supplier of flooded batteries for now.  Our biggest complaint with our 
Trojan distributor (among many) is that we can't get them to honor a quote 
for more than 24 hours in this uncertain market.  Compare that to the 
Deka/MK situation -  I've got a system pre-sold with MK sealed batteries 
scheduled for next spring, and I have time to go to the customer and give 
him the option of getting his batteries before the price increase.  And I 
have a quote I'm putting together today for a client, where I can give him 
advance notice of pending price increases.  It makes so much difference, 
being able to manage customer's expectations.

And I guess, be forewarned, it sounds as if even more battery price 
increases are on the way.

John Raynes
RE Solar
Torrey, UT


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