New cell suppliers to the US? | Second Life Storage & Solar

EricKoshinsky said: Neilmc's suggestion is a pretty good one. You'll be hard pressed to find (or any cylindrical) cells at $1/Ah like the larger cell he linked to in eBay. Depending on what you're building and its purpose, LiFePO4 are available in many amp/hour variations, even in cylindrical formats. Also just going outside format gives more options and capacities.

I have done a bit of searching for bulk cells (outside of eBay/Amazon etc.), and I'd estimate that even in large quantities (several thousand cells) you'd be looking at $3-$10/cell depending on brand, power vs. energy, and capacity over 2 Ah. Lower capacity = lower price. At least these seem to be the wholesale prices I've come across.

Great, thanks for the tip. I guess the main draw of is the ability to get them cheap/free when one has access to salvaged cells. I'm questioning the purpose myself, I have to admit a big part of it is I've always wanted to build something like this. But the reason I'm thinking of actually doing it sometime pretty soon is we're getting ready to move to a rural town in CO in a few months where I'll be re-installing my 4 panel PV system, and probably adding at least another 4-6 panels to it. I figure since folks there say power can be flaky in the winter when there are storms, it might be worth exploring battery backup. However, the temptation to just get a propane or natural gas powered generator is high since they're just so much cheaper than a large, multi-kWhr lithium pack. But if I build it myself and can get good pricing on batteries, it might be more feasible/cost effective.

This will all depend somewhat on the needs of whatever house we buy out there. E.g., what does it have for heat, water heater, etc. A pack that can run a hot water heater, electric heat, electric clothes dryer, etc, is gonna be a big expensive pack. Skipping laundry is always an option i.e. just using a laundromat if power is out for more than a couple days, but we'd sort of need hot water for showers.

Thanks again.

kronultimate said:

EricKoshinsky said: Neilmc's suggestion is a pretty good one. You'll be hard pressed to find (or any cylindrical) cells at $1/Ah like the larger cell he linked to in eBay. Depending on what you're building and its purpose, LiFePO4 are available in many amp/hour variations, even in cylindrical formats. Also just going outside format gives more options and capacities.

I have done a bit of searching for bulk cells (outside of eBay/Amazon etc.), and I'd estimate that even in large quantities (several thousand cells) you'd be looking at $3-$10/cell depending on brand, power vs. energy, and capacity over 2 Ah. Lower capacity = lower price. At least these seem to be the wholesale prices I've come across.

Great, thanks for the tip. I guess the main draw of is the ability to get them cheap/free when one has access to salvaged cells. I'm questioning the purpose myself, I have to admit a big part of it is I've always wanted to build something like this. But the reason I'm thinking of actually doing it sometime pretty soon is we're getting ready to move to a rural town in CO in a few months where I'll be re-installing my 4 panel PV system, and probably adding at least another 4-6 panels to it. I figure since folks there say power can be flaky in the winter when there are storms, it might be worth exploring battery backup. However, the temptation to just get a propane or natural gas powered generator is high since they're just so much cheaper than a large, multi-kWhr lithium pack. But if I build it myself and can get good pricing on batteries, it might be more feasible/cost effective.

This will all depend somewhat on the needs of whatever house we buy out there. E.g., what does it have for heat, water heater, etc. A pack that can run a hot water heater, electric heat, electric clothes dryer, etc, is gonna be a big expensive pack. Skipping laundry is always an option i.e. just using a laundromat if power is out for more than a couple days, but we'd sort of need hot water for showers.

Thanks again.

Things like hot water, clothes dryer and heating is going to be difficult to support especially in winter months. If you're looking at off grid, my guess is that the battery size will need to be well over 60kwh and you'll need a large number of panels to make up for lower generation in winter (maybe 40+ 250w panels) Even then you'll probably want a generator or other sources of energy for prolonged bad weather periods where you just can't get enough energy into the batteries.

If not off grid, then you can sparingly access the grid as needed.

In a house of 4 people, we use about 25kwh per day without electric heating and not using a clothes dryer. (more like 30kwh if we add some electric clothes drying in a day)We have gas hot water and heating. If we had a 60kwh battery, that's only a couple of days of storage if the weather was really bad for a couple of days.

Edit... if you find a property with a fairly reliable stream running through it, you might be able to get a few thousand watts of 24/7 energy with a micro hydro setup. Need to have a backup plan if the creek runs dry though!