Hi all, New around here with some questions - most immediately about batteries.
I bought an off grid cabin in the mountains back almost 4 years ago with very annoying to maintain flooded lead acid batteries. Specifically Crown CR-370 batteries. 16 of the massive things in a combo series/parallel, set up to run at 48V (each battery is 6V, so two series of 8 batteries). I am simply done with them and looking to replace this summer. Lots of headaches with distilled water and tons of time keeping terminals clean and etc...
There is an electrical room the size of a large closet built onto the back side of the cabin holding all the gear and batteries. So new batteries don't need to be water proof, but it does get below freezing at times in that space in winter so I think I need self heating batteries. Preferably ones that use incoming solar to run the heating elements (Is that a thing? or do all self heating batteries reserve a bit of power to self heat?).
I am thinking server rack batteries are likely the best option and I'm likely to upgrade the total storage too. Current batteries have theoretical ~17.7KW of useful capacity at 50% discharge. I'm planning to upgrade with more solar panels at some point (1-2 years out) and think perhaps 6 rack batteries all bought at the same time is better than trying to buy fewer now then expand to more in the future? With the current panels ~16-20KW of storage is probably correct, but more shouldn't hurt. Obviously I'm only semi-knowledgeable on this equipment at the moment, but trying to learn fast.
Looking to see what everyone thinks for self heating batteries that might be a good option. The inverter is a Schneider XW+ that can output up to 6.8KW continuous. A Midnight Solar charge controller is feeding power in from the 4KW solar array. There is a small generator also attached that hardly runs (it's set up to be automatic).
Still trying to decide if I want to do the upgrade(s) myself or hire out when it comes time.
Thoughts or ideas?
I bought an off grid cabin in the mountains back almost 4 years ago with very annoying to maintain flooded lead acid batteries. Specifically Crown CR-370 batteries. 16 of the massive things in a combo series/parallel, set up to run at 48V (each battery is 6V, so two series of 8 batteries). I am simply done with them and looking to replace this summer. Lots of headaches with distilled water and tons of time keeping terminals clean and etc...
There is an electrical room the size of a large closet built onto the back side of the cabin holding all the gear and batteries. So new batteries don't need to be water proof, but it does get below freezing at times in that space in winter so I think I need self heating batteries. Preferably ones that use incoming solar to run the heating elements (Is that a thing? or do all self heating batteries reserve a bit of power to self heat?).
I am thinking server rack batteries are likely the best option and I'm likely to upgrade the total storage too. Current batteries have theoretical ~17.7KW of useful capacity at 50% discharge. I'm planning to upgrade with more solar panels at some point (1-2 years out) and think perhaps 6 rack batteries all bought at the same time is better than trying to buy fewer now then expand to more in the future? With the current panels ~16-20KW of storage is probably correct, but more shouldn't hurt. Obviously I'm only semi-knowledgeable on this equipment at the moment, but trying to learn fast.
Looking to see what everyone thinks for self heating batteries that might be a good option. The inverter is a Schneider XW+ that can output up to 6.8KW continuous. A Midnight Solar charge controller is feeding power in from the 4KW solar array. There is a small generator also attached that hardly runs (it's set up to be automatic).
Still trying to decide if I want to do the upgrade(s) myself or hire out when it comes time.
Thoughts or ideas?
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