Clearly there is a strong element of prejudice in the assessment of NiFe
I am perfectly happy with Nickel Iron Cells and others in this forum notice a strong biased point of view suggesting that they are terrible. There is no need in this life to be Right or Wrong ... there are applications for both types of batteries.
If you simply do not want to be a continuous consumer of batteries then the higher price of NiFe will be attractive. If you do not care about having to go through a number of sets of batteries in a lifetime ... then lead acid batteries are for you. If you are in Africa in a place where there is no recycling methods at all then lead acid batteries would best be avoided to protect their environment.
Every technology has its perfectly suited applications. In my case it was a requirement that my batteries never need replacing because I was modelling power systems for schools and hospitals in Africa. Lead acid batteries were already being shunned by the Non Governmental Organizations building the schools and hospitals. They had tried it and they had mountains of dead batteries behind the school after a decade or two. The specifications included "no lead acid batteries for backup".
Why not just accept that some of us are dedicated to using them and are seeing none of the supposed problems spoken of. We are actually using them and not speaking from theory only.
Ian Soutar
Vancouver Island BC Canada.
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Cost comparison NiFe to Lead Acid
This cost comparison is completely out of line. For good quality industrial batteries of the lead acid type the price comparison to NiFe is about 3x to 4 times the price ... never seen them as high prices as you are suggesting. When I saw the price difference was so minor for something that actually lasted in spite of abused I knew it was the only solution for me.
As an example, my battery system which consisted of 22 200 amp hour cells has a rating of 200 times 26.4 (nominal voltage of battery) or 5280 watt hours. Divided by the price $2500 that makes it about 2 dollars / watt hour.
The price listed for lead acid is way too low compared to the price for real industrial batteries with a (supposed) 20 year lifespan. Their lifespan is usually much shorter in solar applicaitons.
I am trying to avoid all consumerism that involves regular replacements. That is why I also used leading edge DC light modules. I should get about 15 years or more out of the lights.
For others interested in the lights, I found some at http://ledsupply.com and have used their services many times. My lights always came through and worked perfectly. This is one source and http://www.digikey.ca was another great source for lighting module parts.
As far as the choice of batteries goes, the cost of simply replacing batteries over and over again to beat the price of NiFe is kind of deceiving since there will be 5 times when the system is down for maintenance. There will be 5 deliveries disassemblies and reconstructions of the battery system and 4-5 disposals that probably involve moving a ton of batteries many times.
All these things cost money above and beyond the cost of the cells. I prefer to buy only one set and forget about battery replacements for the remainder of my life. I am 62 and in 10 years might not even be able to manage the battery replacement. So I went with the permanent choice to be kind to myself as I get older.
Ian Soutar
Vancouver Island
BC Canada.
Like I have said 100 times the cost prevents them from being used. The cost is 2-fold.
NiFe $/wh cost are around $4/wh to $5/wh. There is no way around this because Nickel Silver is an expensive semi-precious metal and a commodity. Compare that to a cost of a good 10 year Lead Acid battery of $0.15/wh. It does not matter if the NiFe last 50 years, buying 5 sets of FLA batteries over 50 years is still 1/6th to 1/10th the price. You can buy today a Communist made Lithium battery that should last 50 years for $0.50/Wh which is 1/10th of NiFe today. The economics are not nor will they ever justify NiFe.
To add more expense is the NiFe charge efficiency of 60% which means you need a much larger solar panel wattage to store a given amount of energy. This eliminates pretty much of any chance of CO2 offset in addition to any economic gain.
So by choosing to use NiFe you just chose to pay around $6/Kwh for the rest of your life vs 12 cents from the utility. You could have invested that money and retired in luxury in 10 years.
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I am usin Nickel Iron Cells for off grid lighting and for remote African Schools
I have been living with nickel iron cells for a year now supplying our lighting and computer power in our home on Vancouver Island. Very happy with them since for a week or so I was using the lower 10% of the cell voltage. The weather was so dark at Christmas that little charging was happening close to Dec 21 and for a week afterwards.
After a number (8) of complete discharges the sun finally came out and the battery system started holding an extra 20% when full ... I guess the batteries were never broken in. The Edison literature and correspondence with the USA navy in the 1920s suggested a few years may pass before they achieve the best storage. Mine took 1 year to reach full performance.
The big advantage is their non toxic chemistry and long life which I am getting a lot of interest for in Africa for schools and hospitals.
I am working with several NGO parties who have built schools and hospitals using lead acid ... but ultimately it become a lead pollution source in a country that lacks recycling! A number of service clubs are purchasing NiFe for these solar systems and lead acid is being phased out to avoid past problems in Africa for off grid.
The cost is about $2500 these days for twenty two - 200 amp hours of cells. They have an estimated lifespan under normal solar use of about 20 to 30 years. In KwH this is approximately 200 amp hours by 26.4 volts or 5.2 kwh. The higher price is easy to explain ... nickel costs 10 times the price of lead. Iron is amost worthless ... so all things being equal the price for NiFe should be about 500% greater. In fact it is between 300% to 400% compared to batteries made in Canada. In the price comparison we are comparing only to proper industrial single cell lead acid cells as are used in industrial backup applications. But these lead type batteries are inappropriate for the jobs in Africa that I am working on.
My requirements were precise for the African applications ...
1/ Must last for 20 - 30 years without battery replacement.
2/ Batteries cannot be based on heavy metals such as lead or cadmium.
3/ Cannot be lithium because they are fragile, costly and have safety issues.
Cost is not an issue but these three points must be met. The newest solar model NiFe batteries have large electrolyte storage areas so that the water level needs to be checked only once a year.
MPPT chargers are being used which have settable voltages (rather than being designed just for one battery chemistry such as lead). The MX60 from Outback is one example used in our house on Vancouver Island.
Alternate Green Batteries
Another contender for smaller buildings is the Nickel Metal Hydride battery ... for situations like lighting in a small cabin or hut where spilling of the electrolyte may happen. The Sealed NiMh chemistry is ideal for this and has a lifespan that is quite tolerant of mistakes.
So both battery designs will be in use NiFe and Nickel Metal Hydride. NiFe is used for whole town power.
The other important half of the house power system are the high efficiency high powered triple emitter Enstar LED lamps. They are built into lighting fixtures with heavy diffusing glass to achieve a very bright and very efficient DC lighting system. It uses constant current regulators on each light so that voltages can vary from 18 volts to 40 volts and the lights behave identically. In fact my voltages are near 28-29 volts for most of the year.
If you go to the Nickel Iron Battery Assocation website you will find pictures of Chinese village power systems using these batteries underway. Changhong Batteries in China has built over 300 village power systems in the last 10 years. They were using NiCad a few years ago but are phasing out the cadmium batteries because they are being phased out in the EU as well. NiFe is the substitute battery with very similar characteristics to NiCad flooded cells.
Nickel Iron Battery Assocation
Our house system is shown on that site. In my situation I prefer a non-consumable type battery ... I pay my money and am worry free for the rest of my life. Eventually they will need replacing ... but only after I have already "kicked the bucket."
Works for me!
Ian Soutar
Vancouver Island BC Canada.
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Nickel Iron Efficiency
The recommended charging time for Edison cells is 7 hours @ rated discharge rate. The cell discharge rate is based on a 5 hour time period. The efficiency is a little more than 70%.Leave a comment:
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Way Cool, what a find you made.
The problem with NiFe batteries, is their re-charge efficiency. They consume 200Watts, to replace 100W. Lead acid, form 0-80% full, are about 95% efficient, and from 80-100, about 80% efficient. Nife, is 50% from 0-100%, which is a lot more PV needed for a larger installation.
Cost, is also about 3x lead acid, as nickel is a semi-precious metal.Leave a comment:
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Nickel Iron Batteries
I have a small solar system that powers my garage. The solar panels add up to 90 watts. This has been in use now for ~ 5 years to power the lights, televison, radio and small power tools. The batteries I have been using are whatever is lying around, primarily glassmat alarm batteries and Nicads. I was about to buy a set of golf cart deep cycle lead acid batteries then remembered I had a bunch of Edison Nickel Iron cells on a shelf hidden by years of accumulation. I bought these in the late 70's from different sources and never used them. The electrolyte had long dried out to the point is was not visible through the fill caps. The newest set was manufactured in 1961, the oldest before 1928. After much research, I figured out the formula for the electrolyte and replaced it. This was followed by cycle testing with a motor/generator set and load resistors. In the end, the set made before 1928 is still at 65% of new rated capacity. The set made in 1961 is at 70-75% of new capacity. I have been using the newer set for a year now and am thrilled with the performance. I know they are expensive but seem to be a good fit for solar systems. Unlike other batteries, they really are nearly indestructible. I don't even have a charge controller hooked to them. I will get one at some point but just add water ever 3-4 months for now. The only difference to be considered with these is the need for a different charge controller. The fully charged voltage of a nickel iron set produces 14-15 volts and will trip off inverters designed for lead acid. There are inverters available with adjustable set points. For now, when working in the garage, I momentarily remove a couple of cells from the circuit to get the inverter started, then apply a load. Works for now !Leave a comment:
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One thing to keep in mind when surfing is that probably 95% of the information available on the net is questionable.
Most manufacturers sites are pure salesmanship - BS & blather mixed with no more facts than necessary. Small wind turbines are an excellent example of this. I was reading yesterday where Dyocore is apparently claiming to beat Betzs Law by a few hundred percent - and trying to defend their position.
Membership to forums is open to all - no way to check qualifications. Some of the stuff you read on engineering sites is scary - written by 3rd graders maybe.
Many sites love to use controversy to get clicks. So a stupid post or claim means more income.Leave a comment:
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NiFe are one of the oldest battery technologies known to exist. Before gasoline vehicles were Electric Vehicles and NiFe was king. Everything to be known about them is already known and well documented as it is a fully developed technology. You do not have to do any more experiments to know what they can do or cannot do.
It is like using CRT for displays or 8 track tapes. It is history. Or another way to put it is Germany during WWII trying to exterminate Jew's, it will not work to solve your problem and no reason to try. Well until Nickels grows on trees, abundant, and free for the picking.
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Like I have said 100 times the cost prevents them from being used. The cost is 2-fold.
So by choosing to use NiFe you just chose to pay around $6/Kwh for the rest of your life vs 12 cents from the utility. You could have invested that money and retired in luxury in 10 years.
I have noticed a certain almost derision toward this battery and I have yet to read among the many, many posts about them on various forums any real-life reports from people actually using them in PV or any other alternative energy household other than maybe running some low-voltage lights. There are certainly those out there in the world at large who have and are doing so, but I haven't run across any reports from any of them.
I said the cost was high and it hurt. But let's look at a situation right here with me and my only neighbor in this gulch, a mile away. In my case, I've had this bank of lead acid batteries for over 20 yr., actually not too far off from a quarter century. 1875 amp hr for which I paid something like $2200 with trucking. For the first fifteen yr., I was charging them with a PV array of roughly 750 watts. I was in ignorance of how small that array was according to what is needed to keep a bank that large healthy and charged up for use. The batteries did fine. After the 15 yr. point, I expanded my array to about 2000 w. to take advantage of some utility co. and fed. rebates/tax credits. Plus we wanted a freezer and etc.
The experts would have had conniption fits about the small size of my array. I had no idea it was too small. Then, with the array upgrade, I began to get back into reading up on the latest technology and such. I learned more about equalization and the like, realizing thru this that my 750 watt array was far too small. Everyone said....
Meanwhile, my neighbor has just now ordered his fourth set of very pricey, designed-specifically-for-PV batteries in the same time span. Not quite 24 years. Guess what: his total outlay for these sets of batteries is a little more than what I'm paying for the new set of NiFe batteries. Huh.
An "expert" who came up to service my neighbor's system stopped by to see mine when told that I had such a small array with a large-capacity bank. He even went up on the hillside and wrote down the spec's from the rear of the panels. He claimed I was not being honest and my lead acid batteries were no way that old. I got the invoice from my files and showed him. Which is just to say the experts cannot always predict what will happen. I do not advise anyone to go buy a large bank of batteries and use them with a too-small array. I did it it ignorance. However, as I said before, in all these years, they've done great and are actually still working for us, though showing signs of aging.
I said before I will report here on how these nickel-iron batteries work out, even if they are a nightmare I regret having bought. I am feeling they will be just fine. But in either case, I'll report.Leave a comment:
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Like I have said 100 times the cost prevents them from being used. The cost is 2-fold.
NiFe $/wh cost are around $4/wh to $5/wh. There is no way around this because Nickel Silver is an expensive semi-precious metal and a commodity. Compare that to a cost of a good 10 year Lead Acid battery of $0.15/wh. It does not matter if the NiFe last 50 years, buying 5 sets of FLA batteries over 50 years is still 1/6th to 1/10th the price. You can buy today a Communist made Lithium battery that should last 50 years for $0.50/Wh which is 1/10th of NiFe today. The economics are not nor will they ever justify NiFe.
To add more expense is the NiFe charge efficiency of 60% which means you need a much larger solar panel wattage to store a given amount of energy. This eliminates pretty much of any chance of CO2 offset in addition to any economic gain.
So by choosing to use NiFe you just chose to pay around $6/Kwh for the rest of your life vs 12 cents from the utility. You could have invested that money and retired in luxury in 10 years.
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Sure will. There are many posts on forums and other info' floating about regarding these batteries. In about 99.9% of the cases, it seems, they are coming from those who've never used them. Some of the warnings are downright scary. But after reading it all and talking to a couple of people [two different companies] who have sold and installed them for customers, the batteries look good to me.
Yep, guinea pig here. I could not afford them, it drained us completely. But the positives look so good to me that I had to take the chance. I was able to either refute or see past all the dire warnings I kept reading. Sort of on the line of "anyone who got these for a PV-based system would be an idiot."
We shall see. I will keep you posted. Even if they turn out to be a nightmare. But I don't think they will..... The lead acid battery is, far as I'm concerned, the Achille's heel of off-grid systems.Leave a comment:
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