Battery recommendation

engage
engage Registered Users Posts: 5
I am looking for a decent, low-cost 12 volt battery and was wondering for any recommendations. I am building a 20 watt solar panel simply to get acquainted with solar energy. So far I was thinking about a Duracell DPP-600HD Powerpack battery ($130) simply because it had a built-in inverter. I was wondering any thought about that or if there were better batteries to procure.

Thanks!

Comments

  • RandomJoe
    RandomJoe Solar Expert Posts: 472 ✭✭✭
    Re: Battery recommendation

    That would certainly be a convenient package. I did some quick searches, and find I can't easily beat that price buying individual components, so not bad there either. A battery of roughly the same size from Batteries Plus runs $75 or so, it'd be hard to squeeze a 600W inverter into $55. Plus, again, the handy packaging.

    It has a 28AH AGM battery inside, so if you "take care of it" as generally suggested here (primarily don't go below 50% DOD) you have 14AH to play with. 12V x 14AH = 168Wh so you definitely won't get much runtime out of that 600W inverter at full load! But you could theoretically run a 15W CFL for 8-10 hours, depending on efficiency of the inverter.