my name is David Norman I'm with Discoverer battery and I'm here in Mount
Shasta California at wholesale solar Studios to talk about lithium ion
batteries in terms of the primary differences a homeowner is going to see
in living with a lithium iron phosphate battery as opposed to traditional lead
acid is the the longevity or the life expectancy of that battery typical homeowner
running a solar system depending on how they're
sized it originally could expect it within a 10-year window they're going to
replace their batteries at least twice more than likely three times. the lithium
iron phosphate batteries are warranted for a 10 year performance warranty so
you're not going to have any consideration of changing your batteries
for at least 10 years frankly it's more function of total energy throughput
however with a 38 megawatt hour total energy throughput the length of the
battery is more dependent upon how you're using and how often you're using
it but 10 years would be a really good example of maintenance-free worry-free
energy storage
lithium batteries have this sticker shot for people the upfront cost of the
original in banking compared to LED is probably gonna be four times what the
lead acid would be overall cost when you look at them you know levelized cost of
energy storage over a ten-year period the reverse happens for a system like a
solar homeowner would have whether living with these batteries and
exercising them every day their cost of energy storage over a 10-year period
will be likely in the 1/3 to 1/5 of the cost it would be for lettuce and
batteries over that same period of time
one of the biggest benefits the lithium as a storage mechanism for residential
storage systems is simply the recharge efficiency when you have a lead-acid
battery because that's the nature of the chemistry in that battery okay
the typical charging algorithm you'd use incorporates a bulk and absorption and
then a float stage with a lithium battery you don't have that mechanism it
relates to almost entirely bulk charge and it would go through that stage
equivalent to a bulk stage of a for a lead-acid battery for its entire charge
cycle what that means because you're avoiding the absorption stage and that
is the most time consuming stage of a lead acid battery bank it means you're
going to recharge your batteries in about 1/5 of the time
existing solar system with an existing array for example could expect that
they're going to see between 15 and 30 percent improvement in their overall
system performance because they aren't losing that power on just useless
exchange of electrons in and out of the battery for an installer or a homeowner
that wants to put in a new system today that basically means that they could
size their solar array to be fifteen to thirty percent less than they would
otherwise it's fairly compelling when you look at an installation of
these batteries and talk about and installer putting these in two volt
cells to make a 48 volt system it's 24 batteries in series
that's 24 cable connections that they have to be paid you know 200 bucks an
hour to install that still has to be serviced
that has to be maintained that has to be temperature regulated and any screw-up
along the way and that battery is now garbage lithium ion phosphate batteries
protect themselves it's like there's a person inside constantly looking at
voltage temperature cycle life you know any of these other things that can be
detrimental to the health of a lead acid battery it's taken care of by the
processor and the board inside the battery it doesn't work for you they're
completely maintenance-free there's no vent venting no gassing it's really I
mean it's the future of energy storage it's what's going to enable broad
accessible energy storage in a residential environment