A battery that lasts!

[minnie]

Most of us have a huge amount of solar energy on our roofs etc. but are
unable to make good use of same.
What is the feasibility of making a storage battery of say a cubic metre
or so that could provide a days supply (not heating) and would have a
lifetime of say 30 years (with appropriate maintenance ))

[Madebymonkeys]

Most of us have a huge amount of solar energy on our roofs etc. but are
unable to make good use of same.
What is the feasibility of making a storage battery of say a cubic metre
or so that could provide a days supply (not heating) and would have a
lifetime of say 30 years (with appropriate maintenance ))

Very feasible. Car batteries have been known to last that long.
Estimated cost sounds high when made from car batteries though. Probably much higher with a bespoke.

Around 100x car batteries at £100 each for a decent one: £10,000
Solar panels of sufficient size to charge 100 batteries in a day...£40,000? This is a guess but I suspect its on the low size!

As for a return on investment, some people may live long enough.

A better way to approach this is to base the question on kWH required and amount of money you wish to spend (very important). Also, whether you wish to recoup any of that money?

Everything is feasible (almost), but costs money. Would you be happy to pay much much more for electric for 25+ years or is buying it from a utility company a better choice to keep food on the table?
These are the questions to ask yourself :-)

[mscoffman]

Most of us have a huge amount of solar energy on our roofs etc. but are
unable to make good use of same.
What is the feasibility of making a storage battery of say a cubic metre
or so that could provide a days supply (not heating) and would have a
lifetime of say 30 years (with appropriate maintenance ))

People are trying, but under auspices of the EV Electric Vehicle. Amazingly a car and a household requires about the same
battery bank size; about 25KWh. The house has a bit of an edge; There are no repeated mechanical stresses on the battery and
temperature regulation is easier. So the price is going to track EV battery prices and reliability...Which I think is just great. If you
draw a line around a Leaf vehicle's cab and make it one foot thick, that is the battery bank, now tilt it upright and put it
somewhere in the house where it won't be damaged. You have got it. Using an existing electrical front end and a used EV battery
this setup is doable today, except it needs a HV battery charger. This equipment isn't free but relative to the cost of the rest of
a house it is minimal.

Unfortunately one of the main manufactures of mechanical flywheels has gone on to try to supply 25KW flywheels to utilities,
and gone bankrupt in the process. This is what happens when you don't select the market for your product wisely..

And it seems to happen a lot. It's the "We can't seem to sell our Sirloin steak dinner to a starving man" syndrome.


:S:MarkSCoffman

[minnie]

   Been looking at university of California using sand to replace graphite in
lithium cells.
Anyone know if this stands up theoretically?
             John.

[hartiberlin]

Car batteries are made to fail after a short period of time.

It is much better to build its own lead acid batteries which can be maintained.

You can use rooftop plumb lead foils to build the plates and use
sulfuric acid in silicic acid ( crystalline silica )
as the electrolyte and binder.

The only problem is to find the right cases for the batteries as you can not buy empty battery cases...

If anybody has a source for empty battery cases in Europe, please let me know.

Many thanks.

As the battery industry uses too thin lead plates, these fail very shortly after 2 or 3 years...
but if you use the thick rooftop plumb lead foils these hold much longer !

Regards, Stefan.