LiFePO4 vs Lead Acid a cost analysis for energy storage.

[inetdog]

Moderator warning:
Please keep the personal invective to a minimum and concentrate on the facts (or what you consider them to be) if this thread is to remain open.
This applies to all of you.
I would hate to see it close, because useful information is being exchanged in between the personal attacks.

[Ian S]

1. Dereck knows an awful lot about batteries,

Well, as I've indicated above, he needs to demonstrate that a lot better and refrain from hurling all the invective. The latter may impress a few and intimidate a few more, but I find it rather pathetic.

[Sunking]

Only if you use 20% DOD for the Trojan and maybe 80-100% DOD for the LiFePO4 battery which doesn't seem like a fair comparison. You need to use the same DOD for both battery types to wind up with a meaningful comparison.

Oh but I did. That is where you are loosing your argument and showing your ignorance.

In any battery system you size the batteries to have a given about of Autonomy or days to cover your arse for rainy days. In this example was 2.5 days for each battery tech making them equal in every way. The FLA has to be about 15% larger than lithium. Reason is FLA operates from 100% SOC down to 50% or 50% of its capacity is usable for normal operation. In emergency FLA can go down to 0% SOC where Lithium is a brick at 0% SOC. In a Lithium chemistry they operate at 80% SOC down to 20% SOC or 60% of their rated capacity. That means they can be slightly smaller than FLA. In FLA you use no more than 20% per day, and Lithium no more than 25% which is th emodel I used.

So try again because you do not know what you are talking about. What IEEE Board do you sit on and co write for batteries?

[electrodacus]

1. Dereck knows an awful lot about batteries, and you need to accept that, but his whole approach is based on the value engineering of a system which is expected to last 20-40 years. That leads to reliance on proven technologies rather than speculation about the future. (I think that is called engineering or something like that.)
2. And there is the rub. Nobody agrees on how to calculate the price over life for some of the newer technologies yet. And the price over life of FLA and AGM can still be calculated in a couple of different ways depending on how you design the system and what levels of reliability and hands-off operation you are designing for.

Unfortunately there is at least a factor of two range in both sets of calculations at the moment. If you take the best numbers for the new and the worst numbers for the old, you may get similar costs.

If he knows a lot about batteries I was not able to see up to now.
With all current commercial battery technologies you can not design a system for more than 10 to 12 years of life.
First commercial Lithium battery was released in 1991 that is over 20 years ago so even if 10x younger compared to Lead Acid is not that young that people do not know what to expect and plenty of tests where performed.
2. There is only one correct way to calculate the price over the life of any product. Yes you have to take different parameters in to account based on applications and I was focusing on energy storage with my calculations since that applies to this form (Battery and energy storage)

I actually took the best numbers for the old and the worst numbers for the new and there is still a 2x difference for a more accurate calculation see my remarks in post #39

[inetdog]

Thanks Ian S.
I do not think Sunking knows much about batteries or if he dose then is even worse.
.
.
.
I'm sure no one will not select a Lead Acid if they want a good price /kWh stored during the life time of the battery and know how to calculate that.

1. Dereck knows an awful lot about batteries, and you need to accept that, but his whole approach is based on the value engineering of a system which is expected to last 20-40 years. That leads to reliance on proven technologies rather than speculation about the future. (I think that is called engineering or something like that.)
2. And there is the rub. Nobody agrees on how to calculate the price over life for some of the newer technologies yet. And the price over life of FLA and AGM can still be calculated in a couple of different ways depending on how you design the system and what levels of reliability and hands-off operation you are designing for.

Unfortunately there is at least a factor of two range in both sets of calculations at the moment. If you take the best numbers for the new and the worst numbers for the old, you may get similar costs.

[electrodacus]

Only if you use 20% DOD for the Trojan and maybe 80-100% DOD for the LiFePO4 battery which doesn't seem like a fair comparison. You need to use the same DOD for both battery types to wind up with a meaningful comparison.

Thanks Ian S.
I do not think Sunking knows much about batteries or if he dose then is even worse.

When people decide to buy a battery they need to think in therms of return on investment as with any other thing actually.
They should imagine that they will sell the electricity to they neighbors and need to come up with a price / kWh that they need to charge in order for them to make a profit or at least break even.
My calculation is just the starting point for that (it was a simplification to show the way you should look when comparing any two batteries) there are a bit more details I mentioned in post #39 to make this more accurate.
I'm sure no one will not select a Lead Acid if they want a good price /kWh stored during the life time of the battery and know how to calculate that.

[Ian S]

So both systems on paper both batteries have roughly 4000 cycle life in them.

Only if you use 20% DOD for the Trojan and maybe 80-100% DOD for the LiFePO4 battery which doesn't seem like a fair comparison. You need to use the same DOD for both battery types to wind up with a meaningful comparison.

[electrodacus]

BS End of Life is the same for all batteries at 80% rated capacity. How do I know? I am a contributing member of IEEE 1526-2003 committee. That is the engineering document to test battery capacity performance test for all batteries. Makes no difference if the battery is alkaline, acid, nickel, iron, or lithium. They all get treated and tested the same.

Did you read the Trojan L16RE-A spec they only specify the IEC 61427

Yes all other test for any battery except Lead Acid have end of life at 80% of the original capacity.
The hide this graphs where they show degradation at the end of life. I have seen a spec form Surrette I think where they had that in a PDF datasheet at such a small resolution that it was impossible to read the graph.
And they provide that crap cycle vs DOD with no other mentioning about the test procedure.At least what charge discharge rate did they used?
And I will include a graph for you just to make things more clear.

[Sunking]

Now like I mentioned if I will have included battery degradation over this life-cycle 90% of original capacity for A123 most LiFePO4 has worse 80% after 2000 to 3000 cycles but is still better than 50% at the end of life for Lead Acid.

BS End of Life is the same for all batteries at 80% rated capacity. How do I know? I am a contributing member of IEEE 1526-2003 committee. That is the engineering document to test battery capacity performance test for all batteries. Makes no difference if the battery is alkaline, acid, nickel, iron, or lithium. They all get treated and tested the same.

[electrodacus]

You can SQUAK all you want. All anyone needs to look at to see you are a fake is the price you put in your first graph of battery cost at end of life is 9-Cents per Kwh which is cheaper than grid power. (THAT IS THE BIG RED FLAG OF A LIAR or FRAUD. TAKE YOUR PICK) Not even gullible Ian S will believe that once he opens his eyes and sees it. Anyone with any real experience knows that is IMPOSSIBLE as battery cost alone will be 4 to 6 times higher than commercial power using FLA. There is no way you can dance around that fact and no one will defend you. Your cost model is a fairy tale and is not real.

Hells Bells you even have FLA end of life cost is way to low at 20 Cents per Kwh. You are off your fricken rocker trying to tell us that. Might work for the gullible john doe q public, but not experienced pros who make a living doing this. So take a hike you Fraud.

Now this is a more pertinent argument.
Yes as I explained in the 5 min video and probably even mentioned in the forum a few times the cost / kWh calculation is an oversimplification.
Why ? Because most people are not able to even understand this simplified calculation and is still decent guide when selecting a battery.
Now like I mentioned if I will have included battery degradation over this life-cycle 90% of original capacity for A123 most LiFePO4 has worse 80% after 2000 to 3000 cycles but is still better than 50% at the end of life for Lead Acid.
Then there is the battery charge discharge efficiency that I did not include in the cost/kWh calculation that adds little to LiFePO4 with 95% efficiency at 2h rate and 98% efficiency at 10h rate. For Lead Acid is again a much higher influence with an average 70% charge discharge efficiency and worse if used in the top 20 or 30% of the capacity as is normally done in solar DIY solar installations for some good reasons.
Then there is the degradation over time even if the battery is not used and stored in optimal conditions considering 10 or 12 year amortization.
Then another factor with big influence for Lead Acid is the time it spends with partial charge and this depends on may factors not a problem for LiFePO4.

There are a few other that contribute in a smaller proportion shipping cost is one of them.

So now if you add all this complicated parameters in to the equation price / kWh for LiFePO4 will get close to 15 - 20cent/kWh for small DIY systems much lower for large scale storage (the size of a shipping container 2MWh battery if you remember the photo).
As for Lead Acid in this example the premium line form Trojan the price /kWh will get to at least 60 to 70 cents /kWh thus making this an even worse choice.

I hope you read all that I wrote above.
And If I have the permission from moderator I will show you large LiFePO4 batteries with the link to store price and spec.

[Sunking]

Instead of just shouting and waving your arms, you need to show specifically where electrodacus' numbers are wrong. I don't have a horse in this race .

Yes you do have a dog in this race. You defended him. Be careful what you ask for. OK here you go, but you will not like it.

OK use a real model, not make believe. To compare both have to be equal and include all cost. Say a 12 volt system that can deliver a mere 700 watt hours per day. For a FLA battery it would take a 3500 watt hour capacity battery. Say a pair of Trojan LR16RE-A batteries costing roughly $600.

To equal that with the nonexistent A123 battery Chi-Com copy will require only 3100 Watt Hour capacity. Using Mr Electro numbers that battery will cost $.297 x 3100 = $920. But wait Mr Electro failed to mention those are Prismatic cells, all 48 of them with no means to connect them. Nor do they come with a BMS. All that has to be fabricated adding substantial cost he ignored on top of the battery cost. But hey I am a good sport so I will ignore it too and pretend it does not exist either. But for the record you are talking a good $1000 or more to put 48 cells in a working case with BMS. But hey we are in the Mr Elctro’s World of Make Believe Fairy Tales and ignore reality.

So both systems on paper both batteries have roughly 4000 cycle life in them. The FLA batteries work as they are and only need 3 cables to put them in service costing $600, and Mr Elctro fantasy systems cost $920 to put into service.

So how does Mr Electro conclude his system cost half as much as FLA to operate over its lifetime with all things being equal except price? Both deliver 700 wh/day with 2.5 day real reserve capacity for cloudy days. Both have th esame cycle life. Beats the heck out of me ho whe concludes that! Only thing I can conclude is he made it all up.

In the real world, neither system will see 4000 cycles. More like 1000 to 1500 cycles. So in the real world on a set of FLA’s on a 5 year replacement will cost $600 / [1825 days x .700 Kwh] = 47 cents per Kwh. Once you consider the real cost of Mr Elctro system adding in a fabricated battery case with BMS brings the true battery cost up to around $2000 and that gets you $2000 / 1825 days x .700 Kwh = $1.56 per Kwh or roughly 3 times more than FLA like I said in the beginning.

All you had to do to know your were being taken for a fool was in his opening post on his table bottom line when he claimed 9-cents per Kwh. That is lower than whaty the POCO sales it for which anyone who has any experience with battery systems knows is IMPOSSIBLE and told me right away he is a FRAUD.

So IanS which is less? $0.47/ Kwh (FLA) or $1.56/Kwh (LFP)? I hope you are smart enough to figure that out now. You asked for it, and you got it. You got your body shook, and your money took from a crook. What’s worse is you liked it and defended it. What does that make you or anyone else who believed Mr Electro?

[Ian S]

You can SQUAK all you want. All anyone needs to look at to see you are a fake is the price you put in your first graph of battery cost at end of life is 9-Cents per Kwh which is cheaper than grid power. (THAT IS THE BIG RED FLAG OF A LIAR or FRAUD. TAKE YOUR PICK) Not even gullible Ian S will believe that once he opens his eyes and sees it. Anyone with any real experience knows that is IMPOSSIBLE as battery cost alone will be 4 to 6 times higher than commercial power using FLA. There is no way you can dance around that fact and no one will defend you. Your cost model is a fairy tale and is not real.

Hells Bells you even have FLA end of life cost is way to low at 20 Cents per Kwh. You are off your fricken rocker trying to tell us that. Might work for the gullible john doe q public, but not experienced pros who make a living doing this. So take a hike you Fraud.

Instead of just shouting and waving your arms, you need to show specifically where electrodacus' numbers are wrong. I don't have a horse in this race as I don't ever expect to even be considering living off-grid in my lifetime. Your problem is you've already provided a link to Trojan documentation where if you look at the premium battery line curve, it confirms the DOD/cyclelife that electrodacus claimed for his Trojan battery example. Then you appear to misunderstand what a linear curve is: hint xy = c is not a linear curve. Consequently, an unbiased observer could be forgiven for wondering if you really know what you are talking about. So the onus on you to show where his numbers are wrong. Use of insults, invective and logical fallacies (e.g. appeal to authority) won't cut it.

[Sunking]

Here is another photo it is form page 12 of this document provided also in the original post.

This test is payed by the US department of energy and shows a 160Ah LiFePO4 cell performing over 27k cycles of 10% DOD

Straw man argument has nothing to do with A123 cells. Non of those batteries are for sale and strictly protoypes. Like I said a thousand times, Lithium is not ready for RE. You keep dodging facts with diversions to a Stray Man that does not exist. Current LFP batteries on the market today have 300 to 1500 cycles.

[Sunking]

You can SQUAK all you want. All anyone needs to look at to see you are a fake is the price you put in your first graph of battery cost at end of life is 9-Cents per Kwh which is cheaper than grid power. (THAT IS THE BIG RED FLAG OF A LIAR or FRAUD. TAKE YOUR PICK) Not even gullible Ian S will believe that once he opens his eyes and sees it. Anyone with any real experience knows that is IMPOSSIBLE as battery cost alone will be 4 to 6 times higher than commercial power using FLA. There is no way you can dance around that fact and no one will defend you. Your cost model is a fairy tale and is not real.

Hells Bells you even have FLA end of life cost is way to low at 20 Cents per Kwh. You are off your fricken rocker trying to tell us that. Might work for the gullible john doe q public, but not experienced pros who make a living doing this. So take a hike you Fraud.

[electrodacus]

Here is another photo it is form page 12 of this document provided also in the original post.

This test is payed by the US department of energy and shows a 160Ah LiFePO4 cell performing over 27k cycles of 10% DOD