On-grid domestic battery storage

joefizz

Quick update here too, had the meter read this week.
Usage for 11 weeks at home with normal usage was 20 units.
Usage for 10 days away from home with bare minimum usage was 5 units.



So looks like (as expected) the minimum load doesnt kick the battery during the night at times. (fridge, 3 freezers, fishtank pump/heater and wifi router and thats about it).


As an aside one of the places I visited was Oak Ridge and I had a few conversations with some PhD students who were investigating battery technology and in particularly lithium ion and sodium ion. What I took away from it all was that lithium ion is pretty much there and theres little current scope for weight reduction/larger increase in capacity and sodium ion is way off if at all. We discussed the impact on EVs and they were interested in my home battery system but not to expect the form factor of either to change and also not to expect decreases in prices that have been touted in other places.
Its only a small sample but the guys were dealing with it all at a molecular level so I tend to believe them. Of course economies of scale of production will take effect but as far as they are concerned we are pretty much on a plateau with this particular type of technology.
I wouldnt use any of the above to make any guess on cost reductions in the future but have always assumed the cost would remain a constant with inflation/deflation but that electricity production costs may not. The economies of scale will make a difference but perhaps not that significance. As will repurpose of old vehicle batteries for home use but thats a couple of years away.
The whole conversation reminded me of the supposed Edison quote of 'Ive not failed, Ive just found 10000 ways that dont work'.

mre15

joefizz wrote: »

In a way thats what Ive found ;-)
To recap Ive the sofar solar and pylontech and find once it kicks in at night it sort of stays kicked in but there are variations on when the kick in occurs.

When I first got the system you could hear it kicking in and out muliple times before settling into a steady state at night but either it has stabilised or Im more used to doing things differently (could be the addition of the 3rd freezer, but again thats a transient thing and not a constant load). My 'normal' background load is quite small relatively speaking and as I mentioned in previous posts Ive learned to increase my background load to get the most use out of the way I use my batteries.
Counter intuitive to increase consumption to use less import but Ive only imported 14 units since 1st April.
Will be interesting to see how it works this month with only background load at all times, I might end up importing more electricity for the month Im away from home than the previous 3 months using it all!

I am also using the Pylontech batteries but with a Solis Hybrid inverter. Your problem isn't with the Pylontech as they respond fine attached to the Solis. It reacts extremely fast to pull from the batteries when required.
If I am careful in usage (don't put the AC on) my typical daily grid import is showing as 0.009kWh
There must be some sort of delay before the sofar is kicking in. Reach out to them and ask the question, they might be able to offer some updates to help.
I had some initial issues with the Solis Hybrid and reached out to them, they wrote me a new firmware to test and sent it out to me on a memory stick. It has worked great since then.

markin

joefizz wrote: »

Quick update here too, had the meter read this week.
Usage for 11 weeks at home with normal usage was 20 units.
Usage for 10 days away from home with bare minimum usage was 5 units.

So looks like (as expected) the minimum load doesnt kick the battery during the night at times. (fridge, 3 freezers, fishtank pump/heater and wifi router and thats about it).


As an aside one of the places I visited was Oak Ridge and I had a few conversations with some PhD students who were investigating battery technology and in particularly lithium ion and sodium ion. What I took away from it all was that lithium ion is pretty much there and theres little current scope for weight reduction/larger increase in capacity and sodium ion is way off if at all. We discussed the impact on EVs and they were interested in my home battery system but not to expect the form factor of either to change and also not to expect decreases in prices that have been touted in other places.
Its only a small sample but the guys were dealing with it all at a molecular level so I tend to believe them. Of course economies of scale of production will take effect but as far as they are concerned we are pretty much on a plateau with this particular type of technology.
I wouldnt use any of the above to make any guess on cost reductions in the future but have always assumed the cost would remain a constant with inflation/deflation but that electricity production costs may not. The economies of scale will make a difference but perhaps not that significance. As will repurpose of old vehicle batteries for home use but thats a couple of years away.
The whole conversation reminded me of the supposed Edison quote of 'Ive not failed, Ive just found 10000 ways that dont work'.

In the lab maybe, but the is a long way to go in retail and for public use, The next step is carbon and off the top of my head a 30% increase, im not sure if its hit the market yet.

Oct 2018 "If the Galaxy S10 isn't getting a graphene battery but Samsung does plan to use the technology as soon as next year"


2017 "a team of researchers at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) developed a “graphene* ball,” a unique battery material that enables a 45% increase in capacity, and five times faster charging speeds than standard lithium-ion batteries."

"In theory, a battery based on the “graphene ball” material requires only 12 minutes to fully charge. Additionally, the battery can maintain a highly stable 60 degree Celsius temperature, with stable battery temperatures particularly key for electric vehicles."
https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-develops-battery-material-with-5x-faster-charging-speed


And then the is Silicon instead of Graphite in the anodes.

.."three times better performance than current graphite li-ion batteries. The battery is still lithium-ion like the one found in your smartphone, but it uses silicon instead of graphite in the anodes."

https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air

joefizz

markin wrote: »

In the lab maybe, but the is a long way to go in retail and for public use, The next step is carbon and off the top of my head a 30% increase, im not sure if its hit the market yet.

IIRC and I may not be recalling correctly but one of the things they mentioned was the instability of it for long term use? Certainly use in a smartphone but beyond 18 months, 2 years it starts to break down as a battery.
It would be recoverable but not being looked at for EV or home use?
Similarly with the solid state Lithium Ion, it all looks good its just reasonable long term stability thats the problem.
Plus the solid state lithium ion would do away with the fire hazard but also increase the weight..

Well not exactly a problem as such but the install once use for years model wouldnt work so perhaps the way forward is more user changeable battery systems in the same old form factor.


There are loads of good developments and a lot of stuff is 'on the cusp' but very little of it will work like todays systems, as such we either have to change our mindset or put up with what we have.



Of course the idea of just renting the battery capacity isnt new...

joefizz

mre15 wrote: »

. Reach out to them and ask the question, they might be able to offer some updates to help.
I had some initial issues with the Solis Hybrid and reached out to them, they wrote me a new firmware to test and sent it out to me on a memory stick. It has worked great since then.

Thanks. Its one of the things that Ive had on the long finger, just really needed a period of time where I had minimal usage to present to them. I had a suspicion it would work like this, just havent had a stable enough system for long enough and with more than a day or two minimal usage to test it out.
I'll have more complete data when I get back and I'll post the final usage for the time away and at least have concrete figures to send on to them.

orrery

markin wrote: »

In the lab maybe, but the is a long way to go in retail and for public use, The next step is carbon ...

There's a whole list of these ideas, and they keep changing.


Each one has to come through a series of trials before they get to being rolled out, and most will fall at some hurdle or other. Once they have a new battery that can make it out of the lab it still has to be capable of being produced in volume and down to a cost. And then someone has to do the tests to show it will still be functioning in 10 or 12 years without having suffered excessive warranty costs - I can't comprehend where you'd start trying to do that, and I've been working on product assurance projects most of my working life.

GreatApe

There is no need for battery tech to improve or get cheaper for EVs

Instead self drive software is needed which will allow EVs to be twice as efficient and require 1/5th as many batteries

Right now you need a 50kWh 225 mile range EV doing 4.5 miles per kWh
With software driven robo taxis 100 mile range 10kWh battery doing 10 miles per kWh will be perfectly fine for fleet operators. They serve 10 customers doing an average 8 mile trip then go a supercharge for 20 mins and then serve another 10 customers doing average 8 mile each the go supercharge and repeat. Its about 5 hours driving customers 20 mins charging perfectly acceptable ratio

Such a vehicle could displace 100,000 oil miles per year and 600,000 oil miles over a 6 year life it can then be recycled or the battery replaced if the rest of the machine is in good condition

So in effect you reduce battery cost and mass per EV by 80% without improving the batteries at all

Solarchaser

Do you really need to post this on so many threads?
I get it, you think it's a world solving idea, but this is a thread about home battery storage, only the battery composition was mentioned in terms of EV's

orrery

GreatApe wrote: »

There is no need for battery tech to improve or get cheaper for EVs
Right now you need a 50kWh 225 mile range EV doing 4.5 miles per kWh
With software driven robo taxis 100 mile range 10kWh battery doing 10 miles per kWh ...

Why stop there, if we are simply going to make figures up? Why not posit 100 miles /kWh?
Most EVs don't even do 4.5miles/kWh - in winter on the motorway you'll end up nearer 3 or 3.5.
Self-drive software is 80% of the way there, but that last 20% is going to take 80% of the effort and investment and still won't deliver what you are proposing, because it isn't much to do with autonomous driving software in the first place. That sort of gain would require massive and improbable advances in drive train technology and aerodynamics, and to reverse the current trend towards large Chelsea tractors, which is turn is helped along by the need for increased height to fit more batteries below the floor.

pile-o-stone

Solarchaser wrote: »

Do you really need to post this on so many threads?
I get it, you think it's a world solving idea, but this is a thread about home battery storage, only the battery composition was mentioned in terms of EV's

I rather get the impression that this poster's aim is to disrupt threads rather than contribute to them, hence the tactics of posting multiple times one after another in the same thread, posting the same post in multiple threads and posting items that are completely off topic.

I have this poster on ignore because of this. While I still see that s/he has posted, you don't have to ready any of the guff.