Don't lithium ion batteries cost about 300-400% of an equivalent capacity lead-acid battery? And doesn't that negate the double lifespan?
Depends if you want to deal with lead acid. The cost savings comparison was with VRLA btw not lead acid.
Advantages as far as i see it
- smartphone notifications, that is a major plus. I don't have to guess when the power went out, how long for and how long my backup will last.
- space, very compact, fits on a wall. With lead acid i may have to consider putting the UPS AND batteries outside the house which in my case means they could get stolen. I'm not sure whether its safe to put lead acid batteries in a staircase room. If ever there is hydrogen sulfide then i'm forced to move them out. Who knows when that may happen. This would be 120kg plus of batteries btw.
- recharge time is twice as fast as lead acid
- no need for top ups, no need for venting. No fumes period. What sank VRLA batteries for me was battery longevity, only good for 500-700 cycles. Temperature sensitive too. Lead acid is 1k+, wrks in higher temperatures. If your ambient temperature is over 40 then lead acid is the way to go. Mine is around 30 usually less. These lithiums are good for 1-2k cycles. APC's docs are quoting up to 5000 cycles for lithium phosphate.
- has a 5yr battery warranty which is the best you get with lead acid anyway
- new tech. Check out the present crop of home ups models on the market. They all came out over five years ago. The only 'innovation' is to add bluetooth connectivity to make them 'smart'. Why not wifi, how much more would that increase the cost by. No, they insist on bluetooth and so there are so many complaints in the respective app section about no connectivity.
Other factors, i don't have that many power cuts. I've been meaning to get a UPS for over a year but the max duration of power cuts varies from a few minutes to an hour. When the weather warms up this occurs every day. Months of March to May are the worst but there are sporadic cuts throughout the year. This last year for some reason saw fewer cuts compared to previous years. They were shorter in duration.
Possibly a couple of hours. per day worst case for a few weeks. Didn't happen last year though. If there were regular 2-3 hr cuts every day then lead acid would make more sense.
From my cost calculations, i was going to get 2 x 200AH + a luminous 2kVA cruze, that's around 40k+
The regalia 1550 i want to get is 80k+ that's twice as much. Not 3-4x more. The launch prices were
crazy. Prices have come down since. eg. The 1530 can be
had for 68k. Prices will likely drop further as production ramps up. I wouldn't be surprised to see them going fora further 10k less a year from now.
For the convenience and advantages i'm considering it pending reviews of which there are exactly zero at this moment.