What Kind of Battery is Used for Solar Panels?
Solar battery also known as solar panel battery, solar power battery or solar battery storage. It refers to devices that store energy generated from solar panel for later use. Solar battery designed to connect with solar charger controller or solar inverter for power backup.
All types of solar system run the connected load in the day time during sunlight and export the extra electricity to solar batteries with off grid solar system and hybrid solar system. Solar batteries work for energy storage generated from solar panels during the day. They save energy as DC energy and therefore, you will need a power inverter to convert DC energy into AC energy.
Some of the major contributors to the cost of solar battery are chemical substances and plates that make up the battery, battery life cycle, storage capacity and usable capacity
Whether you choose a battery manufactured by a state-of-the-art startup or a manufacturer with a long history depends on your preferences. An evaluation of the quality and warranties associated with each product can give you additional guidance when making your decision.
Types of Solar Battery
There are mainly two type of solar battery. If you are installing a solar system with solar batteries than you should know about its type and models. It is also important for their evaluation purpose. Let’s have a look over the types of solar batteries.
- Tall Tubular Solar Battery
- Lithium-ion Solar Battery
When it comes to evaluating solar battery than you should compare some of their specifications such as their technology, solar brand, life cycle, and maintained etc. We have mentioned everything about the criteria you should use to compare energy storage options, as well as different types of solar batteries.
Lithium-ion Solar Battery
Lead acid tall tubular solar battery is the upgraded version of normal batteries that used at home and other places. These solar batteries is specially designed as per solar application requirement. Solar tubular batteries are fully tested and reliable solar batteries that has been used in off grid solar system, hybrid solar system, solar home lighting system and solar street lights since decades. A lead acid tall tubular solar battery require to top-up with water in every 3 to 6 month.
For solar application, these batteries required to be charge on low ampere. So, tall tubular solar batteries are C-10 rated batteries for slow charging capabilities. These solar batteries can store more power than any other battery. But if we compare than these solar batteries have comparatively short life and lower DoD.
Tall Tubular battery is the most success, oldest and reliable technology in batteries. Mostly, you will need either 12V 150 AH solar battery for home.
Pros and Cons of Tall Tubular Solar Battery
Pros – Advantage
- High efficiency solar batteries i.e. 1500 life cycles.
- Long estimated working life around 5-7 years.
- Cost effective solar product.
- Easy to maintain, install and access.
- No need of heavy maintenance
- Very low repair/maintenance cost.
Cons – Disadvantage
- Tall tubular solar batteries are heavy in weight.
- You need to refill these solar batteries timely.
- More space required compare to lithium-ion batteries.
Lithium-ion Solar Battery
There are different types in lithium-ion solar batteries. The best type of lithium ion battery for your solar power application is lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4). LiFePO4 batteries are completely safe, not burnable, stable for 15 to 20 years and maintenance-free. It has good electrical performance with low resistance.
Lithium ion solar batteries is generally used in all in one solar street light, solar power vehicles and mobile battery banks. The main advantage of this battery is the good thermal stability, increased safety, in addition to the high current rating and long cycle life if misused.
Solar batteries for home with solar panel are increasingly focused on lithium-based batteries, which have seen a steady reduction in costs in recent years.
The biggest benefit of lithium-ion batteries is it’s extremely high life-cycle (up to 5000 cycles) and its high charge and discharge capabilities that help harvest more energy from your solar panel. They also lose less capacity at idle, which is useful in solar installations where energy is rarely used.
For these reasons, lithium ion batteries are a good choice for any solar system whether it is small or large, off grid system or on grid system. The biggest disadvantage is its high price tag. Lithium-ion solar battery can cost 4 times more than a flooded solar batteries system.
