[RE-wrenches] SI 5048 and replacement Lithium Ion battery bank

[Tump]

Have you tried Hassan Taylor at SMA?  Perhaps the default begin charging settings of 70% SOC may not be acceptable to the newer battery tech. 
Victron has inverters quite similar to the SMA line and their LiFe battery line along w/ their BMS, performs quite well.
I have used LiFe but Im still NOT sold on them. We, as an industry, have repeatably been offered the latest & greatest, "were here for the long run” manufacturers, only to be left holding the unanswered phone. Aquion anyone?
That being said, I really have not found FLA/ AGM battery performance, venting or installations to be too tough. 

> On Jan 7, 2020, at 4:11 PM, Ray <ray at solarray.com> wrote:
> 
> I recently contacted SMA about their requirement that if the LI+ battery isn't on their list, that we must use Lead acid.  I consider that to be a really poor answer;  just because they haven't tested it, we should not be forced to use a much worse alternative.  Yes, they would prefer to have all their tech communicate with the battery tech, but telling us to use lead acid, that has no communications available at all is the answer?        Lead and Sulfuric acid that off gases deadly H2S, with no internal BMS at all, inefficient overall performance, and short life is preferred ??!
> On top of that, SMA has no one that can even answer questions on the Sunny Island systems at all.  Tech support can't or won't answer any of our questions.  Repeated emails to Heiko Stieber (apparently the only one there that knows) have gone unanswered.  We are in the middle of a large 4 system project, that would have used 15 Sunny Island inverters, but we had to switch to Schneider, because of the utter lack of technical support for battery based systems from SMA.  We were also considering the Tripower Storage 60, but it is only available in Europe, and once again, we can't get any support or info on that product either.  
> My decision process works like this: if you can't answer tech questions in the design phase, where are we going to be when we're trouble shooting this equipment in some remote location later?
> 
> Answer: SMA is not a viable option at this time.
> 
> Too bad, I've been installing their equipment for almost 20 years, they were our first choice too....
> 
> And back to Carl's question: most of the batteries on SMA's approved list aren't even available in the US......so no, we don't have experience with them.
> 
> Rant off,
> Ray Walters
> Remote Solar
> 303 505-8760
> On 1/7/20 12:08 PM, Carl Adams wrote:
>> Hello Wrenches,
>> I have a SI 5048 system installed in 2012 with Concorde PVX-4050HT AGM battery bank.  The system has shut down a couple of times with low battery voltage and it seems the batteries may be on their way out.  There are some signs of seepage on a couple of these sealed batteries.  A few pictures attached.  
>> 
>> System owner would like to consider a Lithium Ion replacement.  SMA provided the attached list of compatible batteries.  Can any of you provide your experience with these batteries or others which could work for this application?
>> 
>> With Kind Regards
>> Carl Adams
>> SunRock Solar
>> 
>> 
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