Sustainable Living: A Primer on Batteries for Use with Solar Storage
Ready Nutrition guys and gals, this article is being posted to address questions posed by one of the readers, as well as any others who might want to know about batteries for use with solar panels. The main thing is to understand this is an overview and will give you the basics to make your own choice when it comes to choosing the right batteries for the job. Let’s get into it!
First of all, when you charge up a battery and then use it all up (until it is drained), this greatly reduces the battery’s longevity. Depth of Discharge (abbreviated DoD) is the capacity of a battery that has been used…and there is an optimal level for best performance specified by individual firms. The higher the DoD (usually expressed as a percentage), the more you can utilize before it uses its charge.
A 15 kWh (kilowatt hour) battery with an 80% DoD means that you can safely use up to 12kWh of power before you have to recharge it again. Seems simple enough, but in times of need people allow it to go beyond the DoD and then this decreases the life of their battery as well as its effectiveness. That power rating for your battery is the kWh (kilowatt hour) figure here. This power rating refers to the amount of electricity the battery can deliver one time/all at once.
The reason this is important with solar panels? A battery with a low power rating, yet a high capacity can deliver power over a protracted period of time for some tools or appliances that you need. You have to figure out the cycle…and this is an amount that is estimated numerically in your warranty.
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