[RE-wrenches] lithium in cold weather/heating

[Sindelar Solar]

Jay,
Well, yes, they do need heaters, and I tried the Utah installer's 
solution suggested by Nick and it worked perfectly.
This was a job high up in the San Pedro Mountains. Shortly after I 
installed a single 16 kWh cabinet, a plumber set up an electric heater 
in an unheated space to protect pipes, which of course drained the 
batteries. This was an unoccupied home. The BMS shut off the batteries, 
which shut off the 24W (total) heating pads and allowed the batteries to 
drop below freezing, so that the array couldn't recharge them. It took 
running the heater on a portable generator to heat the batteries, and at 
331/2 degrees they came back on.

I have attached the pdf of a PowerPoint Kyle sent me that discusses 
doing this. The batteries haven't shut down due to temperature before or 
since this one occurrence.
Allan

On 7/22/2022 6:39 AM, Jay via RE-wrenches wrote:
> Hi Michael
> ...
> As to the blue planet, I don’t think they need heaters. I was working 
> on a system with one and the battery housing was darn warm, much 
> warmer than anything else in the inverter room. Surprising actually.
> Jay
On 7/22/2022 12:06 AM, Nick A Lucchese via RE-wrenches wrote:
> Greetings Jay,
>
> I’ve been using Blue Ions exclusively for the last 5 years almost. Most of my sites sit around 1800-3000’ and only had two shutdowns due to cold temps. Since it takes such significant periods of time for that much mass to get to get below the temps of concern it really just hasn’t been a problem. Of my two shutdowns, one was my own where I’ve intentionally left the cabinet in an unconditioned area where my old L-16’s sat and the power was only out from 5:00 am to 8:30 am a couple Februarys ago. My first site that had been effected was at a client’s where the cabinet sits in an unconditioned multi-use power shed and the door to the building had been left wide open by mistake throughout the evening and the temperature logger had recored 17 degrees by 4 AM. By 10 AM by the time I had made it to the site the power was back and we’ve not had a problem since.
>
> Back when Kyle was at Blue Planet he said there was a dealer in Utah that placed a small seedling or reptile heating mat in the cabinet along with lining the sides and bottom with Reflectix. From what I recall they had reported great success with that effort. I think they might have even crafted a little support document showing their strategy. I’ve been keeping that one in mind for any potential project that might push the limits but seems like for most of us the instances where it would be a problem will be rare.
>
> Best of luck, Nick
>>
>>     On 7/21/2022 2:30 PM, jay via RE-wrenches wrote:
>>     > HI All,
>>     > As I get more calls for offgrid designs with lithium batteries
>>     I”m wondering what you all are doing to keep the batteries warm
>>     when it gets cold.  For some of you 0 F will seem mild, others
>>     super cold.
>>     > Doing a battery box and heating that or heating the whole
>>     inverter/battery shed?
>>     > I’m definitely not looking at batteries like battle born with
>>     the built in heaters.
>>     > Simpliphi, Discover, some of the newer server rack ones ( UL
>>     listed), etc.>
>>     > Thanks in advance
>>     > Jay
>>
-- 

*Allan Sindelar*
allan at sindelarsolar.com <mailto:allan at sindelarsolar.com>
New Mexico EE98J Journeyman Electrician
Founder (Retired), Positive Energy, Inc.
*505 780-2738 cell*
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