Lithium Iron Phosphate LiFePO4 Battery for Inverter/solar in India

[Party Monger]

So I have 4 inverters in the house. Batteries of 3 were bought in oct 2018 with 36 month warranty. Guess what, all 3 batteries almost dead in 37 months, one month outside warranty. Im done with these and hoping to get into Lithium Iron Phosphate LiFePO4 Batteries. Has anyone used these yet?

I have a few questions -
1) Do we get good Grade A batteries in India?
2) Can we use same inverter or just better to shift to inverters made just for Lithium Iron? Cost for these?
3) Can I just have a big battery pack and power the whole house instead of 4 inverters?
4) Can we import these from China like US youtubers do?
5) I was wondering if Im going to spend around a lakh one these, could I also get Solar setup, charge these using that? Sell the surplus to grid?
So like an hybrid setup, but instead of using from grid and selling to grid and paying net bill, I use what I produce, and then import the rest? Cause net metering policy changes have been constantly getting worse.
6) Suggestions for Inverters or whatever that will interface between the solar, grid and batteries. Or just batteries in case of no solar.

Any other ideas or experiments you guys have done?

 

[gokul.ece22]

Im sharing my little knowledge i have about lithium iron batteries.

1) Do we get good Grade A batteries in India?
Yes it WAS available, now after the corona and escalations with china, good grade batteries are now very hard to find.
Market is flooded with cheap quality chinese Lithium Iron Phosphate LiFePO4 Batteries. they are not worthy.
2) Can we use same inverter or just better to shift to inverters made just for Lithium Iron? Cost for these?
No. You cannot use the normal inverters. You cannot directly use them to charge lithium batteries.
It is advisable to use lithium iron inverters.
3) Can I just have a big battery pack and power the whole house instead of 4 inverters?
Yes.
But it depends on the total consumption of your house. By Lithium Iron Phosphate, we can reduce the number of inverters from 4 to 1 or 2.
4) Can we import these from China like US youtubers do?
No idea. Fellow members please advise.
5) I was wondering if Im going to spend around a lakh one these, could I also get Solar setup, charge these using that? Sell the surplus to grid?
So like an hybrid setup, but instead of using from grid and selling to grid and paying net bill, I use what I produce, and then import the rest? Cause net metering policy changes have been constantly getting worse.

Yes.
You can sell the surplus to grid, but what the government pays us is compared to peanuts.
6) Suggestions for Inverters or whatever that will interface between the solar, grid and batteries. Or just batteries in case of no solar.
The big players in industry are not foraging into LiFePO4 battery/inverter because it will cannibalize their profits, because the LiFePO4 battery/inverter will have a life of minimum 4 to 8 years. so they will not reap big in selling lithium iron based inverters.
so they continue selling the old fashioned lead acid batteries and hide their earnings in tax havens.

HYKON and OMEGA are brands which are making quality LiFePO4 battery/inverter.
im not related to these brands by any way.
My relative is using Omega LiFePO4 battery/inverter, man i was surprised by its efficiency. IT is portable, yes it is FACKING portable.
Imagine a Portable 1KV inverter.
It is half the size of our regular CPU cabinets, so it is portable.
It can power motor pumps, wet grinders, mixer grinder, tv, fan, drilling machine, power tools etc.

 

[rdst_1]

In my personal view, LiFePO4 batteries don't make sense financially for the prices they are being sold right now. Buy good quality, higher warranty Lead-acid batteries and take a little care of them.
@adder was able to get 8 years out of his exide batteries.
Even i had hoped for the prices to become saner but they didn't so I bought Lead-acid batteries this summer. Try and buy solar batteries because they are built better and can also handle higher current draw and deeper discharges.
Having a bigger centralized inverter will always be better than having 4 different single battery inverters but you will need to have wiring in place or should be able to add new wiring. I can't do either at my house currently, so using a manual switch to shift to inverter supply when electricity goes.

Edit - It also doesn't make sense to pay such high prices for lithium batteries right now because companies aren't willing to give longer warranties on them. If all they are going to offer is 5 year warranties then, to me, it shows that either they aren't confident enough about their product or they are just trying to make as much money as possible because they can.

 

[gokul.ece22]

Difference between lead acid and lithium iron batteries.

 

[adder]

I have a few questions -
1) Do we get good Grade A batteries in India?

Yes but super pricey. Mostly used in EV conversions or pulled out from a EV.

2) Can we use same inverter or just better to shift to inverters made just for Lithium Iron? Cost for these?


3) Can I just have a big battery pack and power the whole house instead of 4 inverters?

If you use 4 inverters I am guessing they are connected to different room or floor mcbs. So if you use a bigger pack as long as the battery voltage is the same then yes, you could use higher capacity batteries for all the inverters separately.

4) Can we import these from China like US youtubers do?

Only via container and getting containers these days is tough luck. since prices of shipping has become very high.

5) I was wondering if Im going to spend around a lakh one these, could I also get Solar setup, charge these using that? Sell the surplus to grid?
So like an hybrid setup, but instead of using from grid and selling to grid and paying net bill, I use what I produce, and then import the rest? Cause net metering policy changes have been constantly getting worse.
6) Suggestions for Inverters or whatever that will interface between the solar, grid and batteries. Or just batteries in case of no solar.

Any other ideas or experiments you guys have done?

Getting a grid tie inverter and a separate off grid inverter is better then getting a hybrid inverter.

Since you already have a 4 inverters, let assume that it thus far meets your criteria, then you could just get a MPPT charge controller and these can charge what ever battery is out there in the world. Since any charger which has the parameters to adjust the following charge voltage, float voltage, amps with these parameters alone you can charge any battery out there.

As long as you have a BMS installed in the cells. See what happens is that when you use a lithium battery with a regular inverter or MPPT charge controller which is made primarily with lead acid in mind, they won't stop charging even after the battery is full, a dedicated MPPT charge controller which has a lithium battery setting will cut of when the battery is charged fully.

But when you use a BMS what it will do is when the lead acid battery charger in the inverter or the solar mppt charger starts float/trickle charging the battery at couple of few mah( in my case it takes about 250mah to 450mah to keep my lead batteries at float voltage) , the BMS would just bleed the few mah with a bleed resistor. So this will still increase the power consumption by 48v x .45 by about 20watts but you get to use your existing inverters.

 

[blr_p]

Batteries of 3 were bought in oct 2018 with 36 month warranty. Guess what, all 3 batteries almost dead in 37 months, one month outside warranty.

Which brand of batteries were you using and how careful were you with their maintenance ?

How much % load were you putting on them. Did you measure ?

This 3 years figure is typical. Most people buy just what is needed so the load is nearly 60-80% and the battery is going to fail in the warranty period in that case.

Oversizing means the load will be half that and you get longer life but the upfront cost is more which people don't want to spend.

With a distributed setup like you have i'd have thought you'd have had staggered fails rather than all suddenly packing up. That is odd.

 

[Party Monger]

Im sharing my little knowledge i have about lithium iron batteries.

1) Do we get good Grade A batteries in India?
Yes it WAS available, now after the corona and escalations with china, good grade batteries are now very hard to find.
Market is flooded with cheap quality chinese Lithium Iron Phosphate LiFePO4 Batteries. they are not worthy.
2) Can we use same inverter or just better to shift to inverters made just for Lithium Iron? Cost for these?
No. You cannot use the normal inverters. You cannot directly use them to charge lithium batteries.
It is advisable to use lithium iron inverters.
3) Can I just have a big battery pack and power the whole house instead of 4 inverters?
Yes.
But it depends on the total consumption of your house. By Lithium Iron Phosphate, we can reduce the number of inverters from 4 to 1 or 2.
4) Can we import these from China like US youtubers do?
No idea. Fellow members please advise.
5) I was wondering if Im going to spend around a lakh one these, could I also get Solar setup, charge these using that? Sell the surplus to grid?
So like an hybrid setup, but instead of using from grid and selling to grid and paying net bill, I use what I produce, and then import the rest? Cause net metering policy changes have been constantly getting worse.

Yes.
You can sell the surplus to grid, but what the government pays us is compared to peanuts.
6) Suggestions for Inverters or whatever that will interface between the solar, grid and batteries. Or just batteries in case of no solar.
The big players in industry are not foraging into LiFePO4 battery/inverter because it will cannibalize their profits, because the LiFePO4 battery/inverter will have a life of minimum 4 to 8 years. so they will not reap big in selling lithium iron based inverters.
so they continue selling the old fashioned lead acid batteries and hide their earnings in tax havens.

HYKON and OMEGA are brands which are making quality LiFePO4 battery/inverter.
im not related to these brands by any way.
My relative is using Omega LiFePO4 battery/inverter, man i was surprised by its efficiency. IT is portable, yes it is FACKING portable.
Imagine a Portable 1KV inverter.
It is half the size of our regular CPU cabinets, so it is portable.
It can power motor pumps, wet grinders, mixer grinder, tv, fan, drilling machine, power tools etc.

Thanks. Thats what Im trying to do. Reduce to 1 inverter with higher capacity battery that can last for 10 years atleast. Opens up usability at any of the places rather than be limited to individual inverter battery or changing when one you're using runs out. I agree, the efficiency and convenience is out of the world.

I believe importing EVE Prismatic Battery is the cheapest way to set this up? Probably cheaper than lead acid?

In my personal view, LiFePO4 batteries don't make sense financially for the prices they are being sold right now. Buy good quality, higher warranty Lead-acid batteries and take a little care of them.
@adder was able to get 8 years out of his exide batteries.
Even i had hoped for the prices to become saner but they didn't so I bought Lead-acid batteries this summer. Try and buy solar batteries because they are built better and can also handle higher current draw and deeper discharges.
Having a bigger centralized inverter will always be better than having 4 different single battery inverters but you will need to have wiring in place or should be able to add new wiring. I can't do either at my house currently, so using a manual switch to shift to inverter supply when electricity goes.

Edit - It also doesn't make sense to pay such high prices for lithium batteries right now because companies aren't willing to give longer warranties on them. If all they are going to offer is 5 year warranties then, to me, it shows that either they aren't confident enough about their product or they are just trying to make as much money as possible because they can.

Mine dont last more than 3 yrs. and die right out of warranty. MAintenance is also a pain. These are best exide inverter batteries, tall ones. Now I just hate them.
Prices for what I saw in America are not that high. Maybe with the BMS it does become costly, but still if it lasts 6years, that's enough to recover cost. 10 yrs which is more likely since cycles will be very less, will infact be much more profitable.

Yes but super pricey. Mostly used in EV conversions or pulled out from a EV.

If you use 4 inverters I am guessing they are connected to different room or floor mcbs. So if you use a bigger pack as long as the battery voltage is the same then yes, you could use higher capacity batteries for all the inverters separately.

Only via container and getting containers these days is tough luck. since prices of shipping has become very high.


Getting a grid tie inverter and a separate off grid inverter is better then getting a hybrid inverter.

Since you already have a 4 inverters, let assume that it thus far meets your criteria, then you could just get a MPPT charge controller and these can charge what ever battery is out there in the world. Since any charger which has the parameters to adjust the following charge voltage, float voltage, amps with these parameters alone you can charge any battery out there.

As long as you have a BMS installed in the cells. See what happens is that when you use a lithium battery with a regular inverter or MPPT charge controller which is made primarily with lead acid in mind, they won't stop charging even after the battery is full, a dedicated MPPT charge controller which has a lithium battery setting will cut of when the battery is charged fully.

But when you use a BMS what it will do is when the lead acid battery charger in the inverter or the solar mppt charger starts float/trickle charging the battery at couple of few mah( in my case it takes about 250mah to 450mah to keep my lead batteries at float voltage) , the BMS would just bleed the few mah with a bleed resistor. So this will still increase the power consumption by 48v x .45 by about 20watts but you get to use your existing inverters.

Are the EV batteries and Prismatic batteries same?
Yes they are for different floors. And one big battery bank will if everyone is at one place, then we can use 100% capacity there rather than change floors. Convenient.

Can you tell how the grid tie inverter+offgrid will work together and better? I thought Growatt etc had connections for both?

Thanks, I will check MPPT charge controllers. But cost of inverter is small compared to long term benefits of Lithium batteries. I dont mind if it gives me a lot more headroom.

This whole thing is a slippery slope man. First you start with changing just batteries. Then you realize the amount you'll spend on batteries say 1lakh. You can add another 1 lakh with of double capacity, add solar which I was already planning and just make a damn hybrid system that only pulls power from grid when batteries reach 10% or current being drawn is more than capacity of battery like 3-4 ACs.

 

[adder]

Are the EV batteries and Prismatic batteries same?
Yes they are for different floors. And one big battery bank will if everyone is at one place, then we can use 100% capacity there rather than change floors. Convenient.

Can you tell how the grid tie inverter+offgrid will work together and better? I thought Growatt etc had connections for both?

Thanks, I will check MPPT charge controllers. But cost of inverter is small compared to long term benefits of Lithium batteries. I dont mind if it gives me a lot more headroom.

This whole thing is a slippery slope man. First you start with changing just batteries. Then you realize the amount you'll spend on batteries say 1lakh. You can add another 1 lakh with of double capacity, add solar which I was already planning and just make a damn hybrid system that only pulls power from grid when batteries reach 10% or current being drawn is more than capacity of battery like 3-4 ACs.

EV batteries which are of LFP chemistry are prismatic but the quality of the cells there is a big difference in batteries made by CATL,BYD,CALB,WINSTON etc vs some no name manufactures. Some of this good batteries are used in EVs from Mahindra.
Cylindrical cells battery pack made by Sony which sometimes come by on ebay also are good they have like a 8000 cycle life and still have more then 80% capacity. These are mostly used in sony fortelion but they are probably the best ready made battery out there.

Its simple a grid tie inverter only supplies power to the mains but because they have a .1v higher volts then grid, the electricity will start to flow to grid via the bi directional meter. But the Off grid inverter will be connected just like your existing inverter which means it has to have a input and output wiring. So when the grid has a power cut, the On grid inverter will shutdown the output. Your off grid inverter will then switch to batteries or if its connected to solar and there is sufficient sunlight to power the load, it may power the load from solar and charge the battery if its not full. If the battery is full and it will just give the output what the load demands all the other solar produced will be wasted.

When the power returns, the grid tie inverter will start supplying the grid and your off grid inverter will start charging via mains and you can also program it to charge from solar too. But not sure which inverter will get more solar when both are demanding.

In the west they typically connect multiple MPPT charge controllers despite have a off grid inverter, they do this because they can use just 1 to 3 panels and use that just to charge the batteries. They typically have more then 25kw of batteries for their whole house air condtioning/heating.

If you use only a off grid inverter then as long as you have sufficient battery capacity you will not be wasting solar, they can be programed to either run the battery down to a certain charge and wait for the grid to return or you can also force it only charge via solar even if the grid is available, so let say in the morning till evening you charge your batteries to full and power what ever load was there, once the sun sets you can deplete the batteries down to 20% left and then switch to grid to only the power the load and then wait next day for the solar to charge it back up, rinse repeat. This is possible if you have LFP batteries. With lead acid batteries you could run it for 3.5 years and discharge it down to 20% left capacity before it dies, exide says as long as the battery fail within its warranty period it will be replaced, so at 3.5 year mark you can clain warranty and be good for another 3.5 years at the same rate of discharging down to 20% left capacity each cycle.

 

[Party Monger]

Has anyone got LifePo4 cells recently? How does 4 3v CALB 100AH cells for 21k sound? Good deal?

 

[adder]

Has anyone got LifePo4 cells recently? How does 4 3v CALB 100AH cells for 21k sound? Good deal?

4 pieces of 3v batteries right, if its new and including gst, then I guess its okay. About 6k more then some unknown brands of same capacity.

If you mean 4.3v batteries then that is not a lifepo4 its a lipo. Not recommend for energy storage.

 

[Party Monger]

4 pieces of 3v batteries right, if its new and including gst, then I guess its okay. About 6k more then some unknown brands of same capacity.

If you mean 4.3v batteries then that is not a lifepo4 its a lipo. Not recommend for energy storage.

No Its 3.2 or something. These are CALB batteries. On talking directly he quoted 20k.

A fully built battery with BMS, 100 amp charge discharge, and Ability to be attached with other batteries to make 48v battery costs 26.5k. Made with CALB Lifepo4 cells. Said its rated for 6000 cycles.

 

[blr_p]

He says 2,000 - 5,000 cycles

That video is from 2019

CALB - China Aviation LIthium battery

 

[adder]

No Its 3.2 or something. These are CALB batteries. On talking directly he quoted 20k.

A fully built battery with BMS, 100 amp charge discharge, and Ability to be attached with other batteries to make 48v battery costs 26.5k. Made with CALB Lifepo4 cells. Said its rated for 6000 cycles.

So is that the 20k price for one single 3.2v cell .
But make sure its new. Since many of these cells are pulled out from a larger battery pack and resold.(like from a ev or from a hospital battery pack which have a predetermined period of mandatory battery replacement irrespective of the life.)
Calb also has different chemistry with different cycle life. So ask him for picture of the battery and then look.up the corresponding data sheet.

 

[Party Monger]

So is that the 20k price for one single 3.2v cell .
But make sure its new. Since many of these cells are pulled out from a larger battery pack and resold.(like from a ev or from a hospital battery pack which have a predetermined period of mandatory battery replacement irrespective of the life.)
Calb also has different chemistry with different cycle life. So ask him for picture of the battery and then look.up the corresponding data sheet.

No its a set of 4 totaling to 12V 100ah.
Yes its new as per him.
Is there any particular sticker with these details?

 

[adder]

No its a set of 4 totaling to 12V 100ah.
Yes its new as per him.
Is there any particular sticker with these details?

I would ask for pictures first. Since even in alibaba and alixpress, calb batteries are more expensive then the price quoted by that dealer.

I think its not a calb make but a calb style battery from some other make.

Also if its really a calb ask for pictures and then check whether the sticker present in them is yellow(chinese market only) or white(international version) or red(rejects/return).

 

[k_m_Arya]

Sorry for bumping an old thread but I have a few doubts regarding inverter batteries.
1) Does it make sense to go for LiFePO4 battery today or is the recommendation still with tall tubular lead acid batteries offering 5 year replacement warranty.
2)Does anyone have any experience with lithium battery like the omega/hykon/luminous/exide one which has both inverter and battery inbuilt. Does it provide good backup?
3)There are many videos on youtube but not sure which ones can be trusted showing that we can add extra battery packs to hykon lithium inverter battery and also running heavy load like washing machine/mixer grinder/desktop pc at same time and saying that lithium ion batteries can have a deep discharge like 90% and not have their battery life affected where as tubular lead acid ones will have their lifespan cut short if they are discharged more than 50%. Also their charging cycle is 2000-5000 where as tubular ones typically have 500-600. Are the above claims true?
I'm bit wary of lithium ones because even though they claim 8-10 year battery life none of the one's that I have found exceed the 5 year warranty, they cost more and have no scrap value. Also is it true that if one of the Prismatic lithium cells/battery inside go bad the entire battery fails?

 

[kartikoli]

I was in a same situation last year so decided to stick with tall tubular lead acid batteries with 5yr replacement warranty and the main reason were

1. These lithium batteries will evolve and who knows after 3~4 years or say 10 yrs you see a drop in price then your initial investment will look really bad. (Technology is changing rapidly so its quite possible)
2. We haven't seen these batteries performance in real life so can't tell how it will go also after 6~7 yrs If they go bad what will be the replacement experience (good or bad not sure)
3. Resale value, Lead acid batteries are still in demand so lot more buyers where as we can't say the same for lithium.

 

[k_m_Arya]

1) I have another doubt whether to go with Livguard IT 1584TT which offers 5(Replacement yrs+2(Pro Rata) c20@150h or Exide solar tubular 6LMS150L which has 5 year warranty and rated for c10@150ah. The Exide website says warranty will be ceased if used for other than Solar application. So if I use it in normal inverter and if I need to claim warranty they will reject it?.

2) Also is larger weight an indicator of better quality battery?

	Exide Solar Invatubular 6LMS150L (C10@150AH)	Luminous LM 18075 (C20@150AH)	Livguard IT 1584TT (C20@150AH)
Replacement Warranty (in months)	60	60	60
Pro Rata Warranty	0	15	24
Dry Weight	44	34.4	31
Wet Weight	66.3	60	57.3