Aquion Energy "Cost Effective"?

mike95490 wrote: »

Golf cart batteries - just 2-3 years, learners usually kill them by the first fall/winter when there is low sun

If reasonable well maintained I think 4-5 years is reasonable, I posted my experiences in the fridge thread and I'll copy here my last set of golf cart batteries;

About golf cart, forklift and solar batteries. Batteries may vary in design, but they don't know what they are hooked up to... We call golf cart batteries that because they are most commonly used as golf cart batteries, same fork lift and floor scrubber (L-16 interestingly L-16's were often called boat batteries where I was in Florida as they were used in commercial fishing boats)

The reason the 'golf cart' batteries are a good value is that they are mass produced, same for fork lift batteries. The batteries don't know what they are hooked up to! The metallurgy is pretty much the same. Car batteries will normally be Lead Calcium, they have excellent long term storage, but poor cycling characteristics, Deep cycle batteries tend to be Lead Antimony, which has much better cycling characteristics.

Solar is catching up, I was surprised recently when someone was suggesting that the HUP1 was the best value in solar batteries, I checked there website for the first time in 3-4years and found that I don't think they have increased their prices in the 10 years or so they have been producing them, and they are getting to be a pretty good deal. The HUP1 is pretty much a 12 volt modular forklift battery for solar. I don't know(or think) the plates are much different from standard forklift batteries, but I think the design has more electrolyte above the plates and perhaps more area below the plates as well. Forklift batteries tend to be maintained daily or at least weekly, while it's normal for solar batteries only to be maintained monthly...

Here's a pretty good paper on batteries, it's amazing that the design varies so much between US and Europe!

My golf cart batteries, the last set I used to completion, I purchased 4 and had them hooked up in series and parallel in a 12 volt system for the first year, I was moving and knew I would switch to a 24volt system, I was living very minimally fans, lights, computer time, a little tv and mp3 music player, and a vcr some. with fans in the summer time, I was pretty much fine on a 2 golf cart battery 12 volt system.

After a year, I moved increasing the array to @1000 watts and used the same 4 batteries, now in series for 24 volts, I used them with a window air conditioner only at night, unless I was away the previous night and the batteries topped out(reached float) early. I ran the A/C 4-5 hours a night in my well insulated cabin, that first summer The batteries had a higher duty cycle, likely 60-70% at least the first couple hours. Likely brought the batteries down to 60% SOC nightly for 8-12 weeks and maybe as low as 40-50% some nights, but our heat comes with sun so I cycled them like that and they worked well through out the summer, In the fall I added a small fridge and 350 watts of panels. I was working within a mile of home and had a fridge there. the next summer I shut off the fridge and was able to run the a/c some during the afternoon directly from the array so likely used less energy(lower duty cycle since the cabin was cooled down). Again in the fall I added another 350 watts, about max for the 4 GC's on a PWM charge controller. I ran the fridge through out the summer the next 2 years.

So 5 years, torturing the batteries during the 4 summers. Please note that the hard cycling isn't as hard on the battery when they don't sit at a low state of charge. I don't know for sure, but suspect one long winter period of no sun for 7-10 days running the battery bank down to 30-40% SOC might be harder than a whole summer of cycling nightly being charged back quickly, though the higher temps of the battery will also shorten the battery life. My batteries have always lived outside.

On the temperature note, CaribouCoot has been able to get 8-9 years or more, out of standard GC batteries, in the wilds of western Canada. I suspect part of the reason is they is they live 6 months out of the year in very cold temps.

Many people here would and have suggested golf cart batteries for your first set. I would unless you will need more capacity than a single string and in most cases 2 strings of these batteries.

On an additional note, I noticed that the Sam's club GC batteries are now rated at 208 amps hours, I think the set I was referring to was rated at 215 ah.