Weighing the costs

Digging into alternatives on my power system, whoo-boy the costs of things.

My biggest beef is the storage system, has been from the get-go, is still and is one of those ‘rants’ I occasionally loose upon the site. Its the weak link; ALWAYS. (Owner operator is the other weak link, but that applies to ALL facets of life, No?)

Well, I’ve been kinda keeping up with the tech,,, kinda sorta, and one thing that keeps popping on my radar is LiFePo batteries. I actually have a small LiFePo battery I purchased for my Radio controller (for my sail plane ) back 5 year ago. Charged it up then. Went and checked it yesterday: still sitting on 90%charge and powered up that radio as if I hadn’t set it aside so long ago. The battery in the sail plane, a LiPo,,, meh, not so much, and should be recycled as its feeling ‘puffy’. That state is when they can go sideways without warning if put under load(seen a few vids of batteries torching while the plane is airborn. Makes for a cool effect but really kills the mood of the owner.). The iron versions are much more stable and are showing much better longevity and MUCH less likely to crash and (literally) burn.

Then, check this out.

Ouch.

5 times the cost of lead,,,

At least PV panels are still running around $1/watt.

Every option I found has BCM pre-installed (good, but not neccesary with my controller) and none offer an option otherwise. And some, like this’un are perfect for home installations here you have an entire ROOF made of PV, (and there was a maker of PV shingles; thought that was kinda cool, but you wouldn’t want any trees or live where it may snow.)

Plusses: 1)can take a higher rate of charge which equals more efficient charge chemistry☆. 2)weight. About a third of lead acid 3)more discharge cycles. 4)twice the lifespan.

Minuses: 1)COST. 2) special shipping (no postal service)

So, quick rundown of the point of this post,,,,

I may be going bankrupt this year,,

(Assuming the rest of the world can hold its shit together a bit longer. If not, what I have will have to do)

☆with more efficient chemistry, scaling the PVs to the bank is also better. With LA batts, I want three times the power stored, with LiFepo, double would likely be more than enough. In other words; this means I can make a larger bank without needing to scale up my panels.