Aquion Energy up and coming battery....opinions please

[Living Large]

What I think you have missed is AGM cost twice that of FLA and last only half as long. Essentially long term is going to cost you 400% more. If those are cheap AGM expect to replace them every year or two.

No, I didn't miss either of those items.

If Chris' method is workable, I've already reduced the battery capacity by 66%. It's all relative. I'd be willing to pay the premium. It isn't all about the price tag, as I tried to communicate above. I am not looking at "cheap" batteries. I'm planning to buy an XM inverter - I wouldn't waste my money on cheap batteries. I don't know what the best are, but I was looking at the Rolls data sheet to do some numbers. They hold themselves out as "premium deep cycle" batteries.

[bcroe]

First, my dad had a Tungar charger - the model that would be in an auto shop, with a rack of like 24 6V batteries in series on charge. He probably had three hygrometers. The 80 pound Tungar mounted on the wall, and had two large tubes with a pleasant glow. But the whole thing kind of turned me off - stocking distilled water, charging with caps off and bubbling electrolyte, checking specific gravity and comparing cell A to cell B, worrying about gas and acid spillage. Hey, it was the 60's, days of leaded gasoline and all.

I think it was from the 30s & 40s; those glowing tubes were mercury vapor rectifiers, as
vacuum tubes couldn't handle the current, and silicon rectifiers came after the transistor.
I had a related single battery charger, with just one big tube. Bruce Roe

[Living Large]

I think it was from the 30s & 40s; those glowing tubes were mercury vapor rectifiers, as
vacuum tubes couldn't handle the current, and silicon rectifiers came after the transistor.
I had a related single battery charger, with just one big tube. Bruce Roe

Actually, it dates back to the teens. The 60's is when I saw it as a boy. Tungar comes from TUNgsten/ARgon, though I can see why you thought of mercury rectifiers. This was an argon rectifier. It glows yellowish white. Yours is more common, as people charged their radio batteries, I think. My dad's was something you wouldn't normally see other than in a place where you had numerous batteries to charge at once. I don't believe any consumer item would have had two bulbs. My recollection is the high range put out 90V or more, and batteries then were 6V. Yeah, that would be like 15 in one string. I think it would handle multiple strings in parallel. This may have been good for solar system maintenance, but I sold it two years ago before I ever anticipated a use for it. DOH!

These were also used in power supplies for movie theater equipment in the old days.

[bcroe]

Actually, it dates back to the teens. The 60's is when I saw it as a boy. Tungar comes from TUNgsten/ARgon, though I can see why you thought of mercury rectifiers. This was an argon rectifier. It glows yellowish white. Yours is more common, as people charged their radio batteries, I think. My dad's was something you wouldn't normally see other than in a place where you had numerous batteries to charge at once. I don't believe any consumer item would have had two bulbs. My recollection is the high range put out 90V or more, and batteries then were 6V. Yeah, that would be like 15 in one string. I think it would handle multiple strings in parallel. This may have been good for solar system maintenance, but I sold it two years ago before I ever anticipated a use for it. DOH!
These were also used in power supplies for movie theater equipment in the old days.

Cadillac introduced the battery powered starter in 1912, so car equipment could go back to then. So
I can add argon rectifiers to the list of devices I played with (but didn't know it)? Probably better in
a museum; I have worked on century old heavy equipment, and from a safety point of view it was
really scary. I wonder what the phone co used for the 48V plant when office powered phones were
introduced? Bruce Roe

[Sunking]

Cadillac introduced the battery powered starter in 1912, so car equipment could go back to then.

Bruce the first commercial Electric Vehicle was offered in 1859 and became popular when the Lead Acid Battery was invented in 1881. EV's and Steamer's were the first cars and thus the creation of the NiFe Edison battery. In 1912 vehicles were powered 40% steam, 38% Electric, 22% gasoline. By 1920 electric and steam were DOA.

The decline of electric and steam did start in 1912 as that is when the electric starter was introduced on gas models by Cadilac. By 1920 the last of the EV's and Steamers were all bankrupt and out of biz along with Edison's NiFe battery which he never renewed the patent. But Edison's battery company is still around today under a different name. Some dump/dive of a company name called GE.

[Sunking]

I wonder what the phone co used for the 48V plant when office powered phones were
introduced? Bruce Roe

I can answer that one. Simple they did not have 48 volt plants. The 20 volt battery was at your house locally. Your local telephone technician visited your home once every 6 months to inspect your battery and replace it is needed. Only power the Telco supplied was the AC signal to ring your bell via a hand crank magneto powered by the operators hand and arm. The modern -48 volt plant did not originate until rotary step switching came into play in the 1910's when a Undertaker invented the line finder switch concept.

[bcroe]

I can answer that one. Simple they did not have 48 volt plants. The 20 volt battery was at your house locally. Your local telephone technician visited your home once every 6 months to inspect your battery and replace it is needed. Only power the Telco supplied was the AC signal to ring your bell via a hand crank magneto powered by the operators hand and arm. The modern -48 volt plant did not originate until rotary step switching came into play in the 1910's when a Undertaker invented the line finder switch concept.

1910 is about what I expected. It replaced phones with a pair of big "telephone service" dry cells
inside those wall mount crank up phones. I think I remember seeing my uncle replace them himself.
That dial system (to replace operators) was something not invented by AT&T.

The chargers for electric vehicles would reside at the home of the vehicle, so I wouldn't expect
any vehicle battery chargers at a service center till 1912. I would find it interesting to see just
how the DC to charge those battery powered vehicles was produced, starting in 1859 you say?
Perhaps the first used a motor generator set or rotating syncronous contacts, followed by gas
tubes and chemical rectifiers, then semiconductors. Maybe some ran direct from Edisons short
lived DC utility power. Radios got low power vacuum rectifiers about the 20s. Bruce Roe

[Sunking]

Maybe some ran direct from Edisons short
lived DC utility power.

Well Manhattan Island NY was DC up to November 2007 just 7 short years ago.

Solid state rectifiers did not appear until the late 50's or early 60's. Before that was Vacuum Tube, Copper Oxide, and Selenium Metal were used.

The oldest I believe are still used today in high power and High Voltage are Mercury Arc rectifiers.

Then came Vacuum Tubes in late 1890's

Next in line I believe are Argon Gas Tubes aka Tungar made by Edison Electric in about the 1920's or there abouts. Not sure about the exact date.

Then in the late 50's Bell Labs developed the germanium solid state rectifiers that have evolved since then replacing all except Mercury Vapor Arc still used by power companies to rectify HVAC to HVDC for transport. No solid state device can handle that kind of voltage or current.

[Living Large]

My dad worked for Western Electric and later Bell Labs from 1927 to 1969 and could offer information if he were still alive. The Tungar patents on the charger we had dated to 1918, and I haven't seen dates prior to that. Actually, our Tungar charger was produced for Western Electric, for purposes unknown.

Some interesting information you folks posted just above... I didn't realize the DC for what I assume morphed into loop current generated at the CO originated at each user's location. Of course, the CO probably looked a lot different than it does today - I suppose it was Martha down on the switchboard at some building in town.

Here is a link (I hope it is ok to post them) to a 1918 automotive advertisement. An early version of the Tungar charger we had is pictured at the lower left. http://tinyurl.com/lq2cosl

[AquionEnergy]

Hello everyone. Our team here at Aquion Energy found this thread and wanted to offer some responses that we hope will help address some of your questions.

Unless you are in this commercially, the energy-density (physical size), and cost may not make it ideal for most of the readers here.

Many of our customers are residential. We find that often, when comparing AHI to lead acid, the footprint of each system will be similar when sized the same (considering the DOD limitations of lead acid).

Our residential customers often install our batteries in their garages, basements, or similar spaces. Here is one such example: http://blog.aquionenergy.com/a-look-...ood-gate-ranch

That blog post includes a link to download a more extensive white paper looking at the installation.

It isn't clear at a glance to a newbie like myself what amount of DOD one would achieve if restricted to a 40V minimum.

This really depends on the rate at which you are using the batteries. If your system is dealing with longer durations, you should be able to get to a high DOD even restricted to a 40 V minimum. As we continue to release new iterations of our products, we plan to deliver more energy within your typical voltage window.

It means there is no equipment compatible with it. I assume you are talking about a 48 volt nominal system, and 45 volts is as low as it can go.

So far everything I have read about them is extremely disappointing. As for EV's completely useless with a Specific Energy Density of 20 wh/Kg meaning it would take a 10 pounds of battery to do the job of a 1 pound lithium. On the Renewable Energy side Specific Energy Density is not that big of a deal if space is not an issue because it will take up twice the volume of conventional Pb batteries. But the nail in the coffin is th ebattery voltage operating range of 1.25 to 2.45 volts per cell. For a 48 volt system would be 30 to 59 volts. 48 volt equipment shuts down at 45 volts. No equipment will work with it as of now.

Many of the inverters that we have seen have a low voltage cutoff of 40-42 V. Here are a few examples that either we or our customers have used:

• SMA Sunny Island - http://www.sma-america.com/products/...s-6048-us.html
• Schneider Conext XW - http://www.schneider-electric.com/pr...654-conext-xw/
• Outback Radian Series GS8048 - http://www.outbackpower.com/outback-...-series-gs8048

We are inverter agnostic and do not recommend any specific inverters, but these are a few with which we have demonstrated operability with our batteries.

If there are any further questions, we are available and happy to help as much as we can!

[Living Large]

Hello everyone. Our team here at Aquion Energy found this thread and wanted to offer some responses that we hope will help address some of your questions.

{snip}
I'm glad to see you posted something here. I emailed a rep of yours 3 weeks ago asking for confirmation of what products are current, and the price on an individual battery stack. I haven't received a reply.

This quote was a porton of one of my posts:

It isn't clear at a glance to a newbie like myself what amount of DOD one would achieve if restricted to a 40V minimum.

Your reply:

This really depends on the rate at which you are using the batteries. If your system is dealing with longer durations, you should be able to get to a high DOD even restricted to a 40 V minimum. As we continue to release new iterations of our products, we plan to deliver more energy within your typical voltage window.

doesn't really answer the question, but does acknowledge that there is a misalignment of operating window.

You stated:

Many of the inverters that we have seen have a low voltage cutoff of 40-42 V.

but you didn't address this explanation that Sunking gave for citing "45V":

Once you factor in battery voltage sag, connection and wire losses you are now looking at 45 to 46 volts. One critical spec the manufacture is hiding is the battery internal resistance is very high, higher than FLA which brings on a whole new set of problems. It means they cannot deliver very high load currents, which means lots of voltage sag under load.

I wish you success, but as one who was giving serious consideration to your product, the deal breaker was once I discovered that the usable voltage window does not align with RE equipment. I was willing to pay a premium to get in, but I couldn't justify not being able to use the battery to its rated capacity. Intuitively, it just seemed like a bad fit.

[AquionEnergy]

Thank you for considering us. I do understand that our batteries may not be a fit for everyone or every application.

I also apologize that we haven't gotten back to your response in a timely manner.

In any case, it seems that you have decided to go in a different direction for your energy storage solution. Nonetheless, if would like, please feel free to send a PM with your contact information. I will personally ensure that we get one of our sales engineers in touch to better answer some of your questions.

- AM

[Sunking]

Thank you for considering us. I do understand that our batteries may not be a fit for everyone or every application.

I also apologize that we haven't gotten back to your response in a timely manner.

In any case, it seems that you have decided to go in a different direction for your energy storage solution. Nonetheless, if would like, please feel free to send a PM with your contact information. I will personally ensure that we get one of our sales engineers in touch to better answer some of your questions.

- AM

I see two issues with the product:

• Internal Resistance
• Steep Voltage Discharge Curve

I know from reading earlier PR the battery was thought to target the Electric Vehicle market. However due to high internal resistance and very low Specific Energy Density wh/Kg makes them unusable for that market sector. Specific Energy Density is not a concern with RE applications as weight is not a deciding factor although space might be an issue for some. But high Internal Resistance is a real issue couple with steep Discharge Curves.

Having said that Steep Discharge Curves can be overcome providing equipment is manufactured to work with it. Or one can just accept the fact they cannot utilize the energy when SOC falls below 40%. But that kind of negates the purpose. But High Internal Resistance is a problem because it means for high current applications one would have to grossly oversize the battery and that gets real expensive real fast.

The other problem I find is getting real specs. That indicates a problem with the product like high internal resistance.

[russ]

Aquion Energy - A link in one post to real specs and the number of units sold to date would be good.

[SunEagle]

Aquion Energy - A link in one post to real specs and the number of units sold to date would be good.

That link to the blog concerning the Redwood Gate Ranch off grid system was interesting but not necessarily relevant to anyone that may be thinking of a hybrid grid tie system.