My 24 Aquion AHI batteries

[Living Large]

I have installed 16 stacks of the S20's I believe that is what you all are referring to as gen 2.
I switched over from 1350Ah of Rolls fla's about 3 weeks ago and so far they work just fine. I'm in Seward, AK so the real test is a few months away.
{snip}
So far I have been treating them as a curiosity and they haven't caused me any stress at all. Actually this is not our best solar period because the sun rises and sets well north of east and west now, pretty goofy I know.
I haven't fully partaken of the Aquion cool aid, but knew I didn't enjoy the flavor of the fla's! My distributor here in Seward, Alaska efficient energy solutions, visited the factory a couple of months ago and thought they looked OK. Time will tell.

Wade

It will be interesting to see what the results are in winter. Do you have fully unshaded PV? I don't know the variation in sun angle you experience - do you have adjustable racking? I don't have a system, but was planning one (looks like I may be able to get POCO, but not sure yet). For me, FLA wasn't an option I wanted to deal with, which is why I was considering AQ. 16 stacks was about what I thought I would need, and your use of 5-10kWh was roughly what I have. I was afraid that I would have lengthy charge periods often in winter with AQ. Please keep us updated. Inquiring minds want to know... Good luck.

[toothy]

The sun angle stuff up here is a pain, north of e/w summer and 11 degrees off the horizon in winter, with mountains in the way morning and afternoon. We also get long periods of clouds, think weeks+ with no real sun. Yearly gen fuel around 60 gal at best 120 at worst but sometimes I get carried away with the welder and compressor. Most years I spend more fuel keeping the driveway clear than making power.

I have 3700+/- watts on the porch that I tilt from 75 deg to around 40 deg, the garden bank is fixed at 77 deg. I have a few pine trees, not mine or they would be ashes, that get in the way a bit from late Nov to Jan.

As far as charging with the gen I want to try a volt start and a 2-3 hr run and then hope for some sun or wind.
Some here have said stuff about how fast they will charge but with 16 stacks my inverters are tapped out charge wise.

I posted some pictures on the Midnite board.

So far the things I like are laying tools where I want, no acid, and no thought about float. The remembering when I last made float got easier when Mymidnite went on line and I could just look it up, but I'm not sure I have been on there since installing the Aquions.

Wade

[Living Large]

As far as charging with the gen I want to try a volt start and a 2-3 hr run and then hope for some sun or wind.
Some here have said stuff about how fast they will charge but with 16 stacks my inverters are tapped out charge wise.

Are you in a location where you get fairly reliable wind? How much power does the turbine generate with the average wind that you get? Just curious.

[toothy]

Reliable is a bad way to describe the wind around here. I have a 1Kw Kestrel and it does what it's supposed to do. I have never logged the resource, but I would say our avg wind speed is OK.

However it seems that the wind blows the most when we don't need it, sunny, consistently windy days we have, but cloudy or rainy days with wind seem to be more elusive. Don't get me wrong we get some real kickers but the wind part of these events is short lived.

There are times in the winter when it does some considerable good, but the ROI is a bit long for my taste. I think panels would be a better investment, if the space is available. We don't have enough accessible shade free spots so the turbine is a good compromise but it's going to break, where the panels just keep humping away.

Wade

[Living Large]

Reliable is a bad way to describe the wind around here. I have a 1Kw Kestrel and it does what it's supposed to do. I have never logged the resource, but I would say our avg wind speed is OK.

However it seems that the wind blows the most when we don't need it, sunny, consistently windy days we have, but cloudy or rainy days with wind seem to be more elusive. Don't get me wrong we get some real kickers but the wind part of these events is short lived.

There are times in the winter when it does some considerable good, but the ROI is a bit long for my taste. I think panels would be a better investment, if the space is available. We don't have enough accessible shade free spots so the turbine is a good compromise but it's going to break, where the panels just keep humping away.

Wade

You mentioned your inverters are "maxed out charge wise" when talking about the batteries. Are you saying that the inverter/charger will be a limiting factor when charging from the gen? How much charge current into the batteries from the gen can you currently support?

[toothy]

I have 2- VFX3648's which claim 90 amps DC charging but the most I've seen is around 72A, and that was with the Rolls Fla's, and even that made my lights flicker.

I have 2- SW5548 that I am going to use for charging and again I have not seen rated output into the old Fla's. The most I could get out of these was around 30A AC charging.

There was some discussion back a ways about the Aquions not taking a charge in a timely fashion. My reason for mentioning charge rate was that I can only charge at the rate my inverters will put out. Maybe Li batts will take more amps but they won't make my inverters do new tricks so charge rate in my case is a mute point.

Wade

[Living Large]

I have 2- VFX3648's which claim 90 amps DC charging but the most I've seen is around 72A, and that was with the Rolls Fla's, and even that made my lights flicker.

I have 2- SW5548 that I am going to use for charging and again I have not seen rated output into the old Fla's. The most I could get out of these was around 30A AC charging.

There was some discussion back a ways about the Aquions not taking a charge in a timely fashion. My reason for mentioning charge rate was that I can only charge at the rate my inverters will put out. Maybe Li batts will take more amps but they won't make my inverters do new tricks so charge rate in my case is a mute point.

Wade

I assume you have looked at the AQ charts for capacity vs charge current, and thought about your charge time based on the current you can generate when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing (which appear to coincide to some extent, based on what you said). You can guesstimate your charge time on a cloudy calm day, if you don't already have some data points.

[Pad E]

Solar starter

Hi Must have one post to open attachments, this is it

[OffgridMTR]

First Post

Posting my first post so I can see attachments.

[inetdog]

Posting my first post so I can see attachments.

A word of advice, OffgridMTR: You can make your first post in the introductions topic and actually have it serve a purpose.
Do not try the same tactic to get to 10 posts for PM access.

[OffgridMTR]

Forum illiterate

Ok thanks. I know next to nothing about communicating in forums. I've read them for years but rarely interact.

[inetdog]

Ok thanks. I know next to nothing about communicating in forums. I've read them for years but rarely interact.

This is not a bad place to learn, as long as you have a reasonably thick skin.

[SunRa]

Kokua - Ohana style

Told my uncle, who lives adjacent to our property, to bring his extension cord over during the day

Da Kine for sure! Roll it back over to uncle's at sunset and get some ono grinds from auntie.

Sunking talks EROI like the only cost of grid-delivered electricity is your bill at the end of the month. This neatly ignores the total cost to the aina for producing and delivering that power. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in Hawaii where every drop of fossil fuel used to produce electricity has to be hauled in from a long way away, leaving an oily carbon footprint 3000 miles long.

Sure, even with that, it's still a lot cheaper to buy juice than make it off-grid - if the only cost you care about is your electric bill. Factor in the cost of leaving a livable world to the keiki and EROI misses the big picture almost entirely.

I applaud those willing to shoulder the extra cost that the consumer society assiduously ignores in order to leave a little clean spot in this carbon-smudged world.

[Sundetective]

Wow your battery bank graph really demonstrates the very high internal resistance of the batteries and extremely steep discharge curve.

King,

What kind of Peak Charging Amps does this system see ?

Does the Watts Meter Max seem to fluctuate a lot ? Does it Lie

You have pointed out that the AHI Batteries have a 'Sliding Capacity' based on the Discharge Rate and I would imagine the Charge Rate as well.

Wonder how much Capacity they lose by getting charged faster than they like.

Aquion talks about going to 70% Total Battery Capacity after the Lovin is done some day.

How slow or how fast that Loss happens will probably affect the total cost per kWh a good bit over time. Lot's of people miss that.

That's why the old timers changed the Electrolyte so often in their Edison Nickel Iron Batteries.

Rumor has it that a couple of famous old timers also had their own ideas about changing the Electrolyte in Lead Acid Batteries but I never looked into it.

My main man just talked to the first man to install AHI Batteries in the State of Hawaii yesterday, The devil

The fellow works for the main Aquion Energy Distributor in Hawaii and had a lot to say for the Investigation.


Bill Blake

[Sundetective]

Looks like Northern Arizona Wind & Sun is now selling the S30 Stacks, the M110 Modules and some other Aquion Energy goodies.

They downgraded the kWh of the Stacks by 23% from 2.6 to 2 kWh. NOW 42.3 Ah at the 20 hour rate.

While day was at it they changed the 3,000 cycles from 100% DOD to

30% Depth Of Discharge.

The devils

The word from Hawaii is that the new Aquion Energy Aspen 48S Stack is the old S30 Stack with a new name.

Aquion Energy downgraded it over 15% from 2.6 to 2.2 kWh.

It no wonder old Bill's questions got discombobulated a tad.

Can see right now dat to get some truth I MUST start to creep around after MidNite a bit.

Sent an email in the middle of the night that was answered near immediately to start the process.

What can I say ?