If you’re wondering what type of battery is the best to use with a solar power system, this article will tell you the answer. If you are planning to install a solar power system and you want to use electricity when the sun isn’t shining, you’ll require a way to store the power generated when the sun is shining. The way to accomplish this is with batteries and a proper charge controller. But, what is the best type of battery to use?

The recent battery technologies that are used in things like laptops, ipods and hybrid cars might be your first thought. Those battery types are great for these devices, but aren’t a very good fit for solar as you’ll see.

These types of batteries are much smaller and weigh significantly less than older battery types. The biggest drawback to these batteries is cost versus the older batteries. In applications where size and weight are very important, like laptop computers, people are willing to pay extra to have a smaller, lighter device.

You likely aren’t going to be carrying your solar power system around with you, however. What is going to be important is having as large a capacity as you can. So, much more important than size or weight will be cost per watt/hour of capacity.

If you want the best value for a given battery capacity, you can’t beat regular sealed lead acid. That’s right, the same kind of battery that is in your car. The newer types of batteries are going to cost you between 2 and 4 times what sealed lead acid batteries will for the same capacity. For toughness, low cost and safety, you can’t bead sealed lead acid batteries.

In most solar power systems you will find 12v sealed lead acid batteries. Most solar installations use some multiple of 12 volts like 12, 24 or 48. By wiring together 12 volt batteries in series, you can obtain any of these voltages. You can then begin to increase the number of appliances you can supply electricity to and also increase the amount of energy you can store by combining the groups of batteries in parallel.

For charging your 12 volt batteries, you should use a 12 volt solar charger. The charge controller lowers the amount of power applied to the batteries as they get more charged to prevent overcharging.

In order to power appliances you usually plug into the wall with batteries (or solar panels) you will need a power inverter. If you’re looking to sell extra power back to the electric company, you should use a grid tie inverter. If you don’t care about tying into the grid, or plan to live entirely off grid, a regular power inverter will work just fine and will also cost less than a grid tie inverter.

That’s the whole story. For a home solar power system, tried and true older battery technology is best. Sealed lead acid batteries are the best choice for home solar power systems.

Tags: 12 Volt Batteries, 12 volt solar charger, 12 Volts, Battery Capacity, Battery Technologies, Battery Types, Charge Controller, Drawback, First Thought, grid tie inverter, Hybrid Cars, Ipods, Laptop Computers, Lead Acid Batteries, Sealed Lead Acid, Sealed Lead Acid Batteries, Solar Batteries, solar charge controller, Solar Installations, solar power batteries, Solar Power System, Solar Power Systems, Toughness, Wondering What Type

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Alternative Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.