Alkaline battery opinions wanted [RE-wrenches]

Jeff Yago jryago at netscape.com
Tue Jun 3 05:56:24 PDT 2008


We had a potential client several years ago that had an off-grid system installed by others that had a very large nickel-Iron Alkaline battery bank consisting of 48 two-volt cells. We reviewed the problems he was having and BEGGED him to let us replace the battery bank with lead-acid, but he would not. After about 2 more years he came back to us and let us replace the batteries, which would run totally out of charge before the end of the night. During those prior years he had to replace about 15 of the cells that had "exploded". He kept them watered but they would really heat up during the daily charge. As soon as we replaced them with a lead-acid bank of 24 two-volt cells his system totally turned around and gave him days of operation without sun even though we were using the same array, same charge controllers, same inverters, and same loads. He does not have any backup power, grid, or generator, so it was easy to see the before and after.

The Edison batteries may last forever, but we found them to be just too much trouble to maintain, do not hold a charge, have a large standby loss, and have terminals that require custom made cables with over-sized bolt holes.

Good Luck,

Jeff Yago 

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