Battery performance specs

Heedtheadvice

Regarding BESS does anyone on here have any good experience of batteries cold weather performance and thus recommendations.

I know Screwdriver has posted of Tesla Powerwall low temperature specs but wondered of there are any others that are good in that respect. My Pylons are speced only to zero for charging but -10 discharge.

Car LiFeP04 versions are self heating ( their preconditioning) but BESS used in cold climates cope somehow, such as in Scandinavia, maybe only through heating too? Any info welcomed thanks.

debitcardmayhem

Don't know much of the science behind it but my Givenergy ones suggest to run a winter conditioning when the temp is 2°C

Netexporter

Best bet is a sodium battery as they work down to minus 30 without heating. The only one available at the moment is from Eleven. You may need to use their inverter as the characteristics a bit different.

I'm sure there will be more sodium batteries, soon, as CATL, amongst others, are now going into mass production for the automotive market.

QrizB

My Pylons are speced only to zero for charging but -10 discharge.

Those are the "standard" temperatures quoted for unheated LFP cells.

Regarding BESS does anyone on here have any good experience of batteries cold weather performance and thus recommendations.

Sorry, what follows desn't realy answer your question.

My cheap Fogstar battery is indoors, and so shouldn't be troubled by cold weather 🙂

I know some more recent Fogstar batteries include heaters.

Or, if you've got a battery in an unheated shed, it shouldn't be too hard to add a frost 'stat and a low-wattage electrical heater like eg. this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B095X7V1TH

Screwdriva

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6654246/battery-performance-specs

The All in One 2 appears to perform slightly better than its predecessor did, but GE's aftersales/customer/ tech support have fallen off a cliff.

None of the installers I know will touch them with a bargepole, which comes as a surprise to me. It wasn't that long ago that they were the darling of the UK PV industry.

NedS

No issues with my Tesla PW3 this winter, but we do not get really cold temperatures so around zero is the coldest it's had to contend with this winter. Charging starts slower than the advertised 5kWh maximum in colder weather and speeds up, then slows again for the last few percent. I have had no issues fully recharging a single PW3 in my 3 hour cheap rate window (Cosy tariff).

Magnitio

A quick search revealed:

But that is just a few of the cheaper alternatives.

debitcardmayhem

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81874042#Comment_81874042

Yes I concur that GE , from personal experience , tech support is terrible, the only way I got any help from them was slating them on Trustpilot. My installers fortunately are good but even they are losing patience with them.

Heedtheadvice

Thanks all.

Through is some good info.

I knew Fogstar( and the kit) were now popular and a good price but did not know those ones had their own heaters. Will have a look at them.

No for a purchase but just for info gathering at the moment.

NedS

Regardless of spec sheets, I'd want multiple reports or accounts of real world winter performance from verified users before committing a large amount of money on a battery where the economic model requires efficient charging/discharging during cold weather periods. After shortlisting, I'd be checking out Facebook user groups for user accounts / reported issues.

Screwdriva

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81874132#Comment_81874132

This is consistent with my experience across 20+ installations, down to -4 degrees C. I can't say the same for any other mainstream brand.