Day 18: BATTERIES,SOME MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Day 18 of #100daysofsolarnuggets

Hello every one

We have spent the past few days looking at batteries, Deep cycle batteries (lead acid), where we have the flooded, gel and the AGM. We also looked at Lithium batteries and the Nickel based batteries.

Today we are going to be looking at how batteries work and also some factors to consider when choosing a battery for your power bank.I may go a bit technical here so I ask that you all bear with me,i promise to make it as simple and clear as possible.

To answer this question how do batteries work, we need to know what a battery is made up of,

A battery has 3 main components

.1) the positive electrode

.2) the negative electrode

.3) the electrolyte

The electrodes are the terminals of the battery, made up of conducting materials (metals), this are called anode and the cathode.

Now  most of the time  the Anode is the negative electrode and the Cathode is the positive electrode, although this is not always the case with all kinds of batteries, take a look at your battery, besides the electrodes ,you would see inscribed on the battery the negative sign beside one electrode and the positive sign beside another.

I also want to quickly mention, rechargeable batteries like the ones we use for Solar Installation have their polarities reversed during charging ,what this means is that the positive side(electrode) during discharging becomes the negative side(electrode) during charging and the negative side(during) during discharging becomes the positive side  during charging.

The terminals (anode and cathode) are separated by a fluid which is called the electrolyte

Electrolyte

This is basically a fluid that allows electrical charges to flow through it, a medium or a channel through which electric charges flow between the cathode and the anode.

Once a battery is connected to a load, reactions begin to occur at the electrodes, this reactions causes electrical charges to flow between the electrodes and as electrical charges flow between the electrodes electrical energy is generated,this energy then lights up the bulb or what ever appliance you have connected to it that lights up the bulb.                       

                                                                 

WHAT ARE THE FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING BATTERIES FOR YOUR SOLAR INSTALLATION?

There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a battery,

We would look at two today then look at the rest tomorrow

.1) Efficiency                                                                                                                 

I believe that efficiency should be the number one determining factor for choosing a battery and not cost. When setting up a battery bank for your solar systems, I advise that you get the best battery your money can buy. You may get a good bargain on a cheaper battery, but in the long run you would soon discover that you would have to replace the batteries a lot more often,which would cost you.

,2)Cost

Cost should be the second factor to consider when trying to get batteries for your Solar system.The different types of batteries have their different costs,usually the most efficient batteries are the most expensive.That said we should always try to strike a comfortable balance within the cost of the battery we want to get and it's efficiency and that is very important.

To be continued…..

Day 18 of #100daysofsolarnugget

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