#ideasboom Save on electricity by creating pickled vegetarian prawns from cabbage. Market them as being good for the envirnment and good as a colon cleanser.
I work in the renewables biz as a Solar Engineer. We are selling Enphase batteries fast and the take-up is expected to ramp up abruptly from now on. I'm not a fan of off-gridding in suburbia. Most people can't energy manage and you absolutely need to do this well to be off-grid. I prefer semi-off-grid where you are still on the network but have solar and grid-connect batteries to eliminate or minimize usage costs and have an off-grid circuit to run lights, comms, fridge and other basics if the power goes down and stays down for any length of time. I used this in the Newcastle mini-cyclone in April which left the place powerless for quite a few days and some parts for weeks. The Tesla product seems sexy but the competition leaves it for dead. Check out Enphase Energy. (NOT AN AD FOR ENPHASE - ITS JUST WHAT I'M USING NOW) Others will come, too and costs will drop but the price right now is pretty attractive and the tech is pretty sweet. Forget forklift batteries and any lead-acid. Recycle times are hopeless, depth of discharge appalling and lifespan minimal. Sure they'll work. In the same way a wet canvas bag keeps things cool on a hot day. They might be cheap to buy but that's irrelevant. Lifetime cost is all that counts and the latest tech has it in spades. I'll take a 1.2kwh, 2 cycle/day, maintenance free LiFePO4 with a 1 hour recycle time and 90% DoD over a bank of high-maintenance, slow charging, short-lived lead acids with 40% DoD any day. For a semi-off grid system using Enphase (or similar) you only need one battery and enough PV to charge it. You can have state-of-the-art emergency back up for about $4k. $10k will give you a grid-connect battery/PV system that will shove it up the energy companies as well as an emergency sub-system in case they ever pull the plug.
Very interesting, thanks! So LiFePO4 batterries have the longest lifespan and fewest maintenence issues? Any downsides?
hahaha pmsl ....got ya good that time oh fk me i wish you could see my face :lol: still not eating ya frozen shit food lol
shiney can i order a serve of your garlic prawns ...you know the ones you cut the prawn shapes out of frozen seafood extender ? they were scrumptious with your thawed salad greens lol
Any downsides? Not sure yet. Cost maybe but lifespan is upwards of 20 years. Now, I have seen 2v Lead Acid flooded cells out in rural areas that were 20 years old and going OK but the guy who owned them assiduously maintained them and replaced the chemistry every so often. I can't see may people doing this. Lead Acid has a lifespan of 5-8 years at rated capacity (or thereabouts). After that they start degrading. I have a 110Ah LiFePO4 as my deep cycle in my Defender and my fridge autonomy time went from 2 days to 2 weeks depending on beer. I don't believe LiFePo4 will be the technology of the long term as new methods are being trialed right now but my view is that if my batteries last 15-20 years then by the time I have to replace them there should be amazing batteries out for a good price and I would have had my money's worth. Up until recently I argued in favour of Lead Acid for the same reason but LiFePo4 has dropped a lot. Lead Acid AGMs can be pretty cheap right now and if you got 5-8 years and replaced them with new gear then that could be good economy but the price difference has shortened so I don't use them any more. Besides, to get the best life out of Lead Acid you need 2v floodeds and they are still dear and bulky. My issue with the Tesla Powerwall is that it uses Lithium Ion. It works fine but has lifespan issues and a risk of explosion. I don't know if Tesla has a proprietary process that improves on this but most people in the biz don't like Li-Ion. the Tesla looks sexy but doesn't come with control gear. The Enphase is a complete plug-n-play system particularly if you are already using Enphase micro-inverters. Other competitors such as BYD, Zen are older and messier but with LiFePo4 batteries and not so plug-n-play. Time will tell I guess.
not again !!! she hasnt stopped bitching about how much of a dud u were last time ..she was mumbling something about frozen fish when i left this morning :
redflow (RFX on ASX) is worth a look, the internode guy runs the company now, he makes the right noises. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/red...ase-for-australian-made-battery-storage-67180
Energy companies business models don't need to change we will just subsidise them like we always do.. Taxi's, Harvey Norman, Banks!!! In Bolivia and a number of south American countries the water that falls from the sky is owned by US corporations and collecting it is illegal, bit rough because the water price was put up to equate to 25% of monthly wages.... I know a family had Kids taken off them in the US because they were off the grid and home schooled, they were taken despite been in great care and all top % in scholastic pursuits. A little to clever it seems. they don't keep faking shootings to have people not living in fear and plugged in
I've been discussing plumbing in a ZBM3 from Redflow for a while with their CTO; waiting on the new electrode pack at present. Does it make economic sense? Probably not; but if the lifetime and cycle numbers are there it's a lot better bet than current chemistries. The battery shed gets a roof next week. I've allowed room for 3 ZBM3s along the left on the floor with inverters on the left wall with the breakers and selection and transfer switchgear, storage and workshop area to the right. I'm also being perverse in insisting on using a Sunny Island 8 as an inverter, as it plays well at an AC link level with the existing solar plant. Unfortunately, the SI tends to lump the battery universe into Lithium and Lead, and needs spoofing to allow total discharge of a single unit. Having a three phase installation *and* a generator *and* solar *and* batteries makes for a potentially complicated control set up, however; especially as I want to start with only one phase on battery. The important limitation is slow charge, slow discharge; in some senses ideal for day/night tariff substitution of excess solar generation, but limiting in a power outage (hence the generator).
