Lead-acid batteries and lithium-ion batteries are very familiar batteries, especially lead-acid batteries can be used in solar wind energy off-grid power stations, household energy storage power generation systems, solar off-grid systems, uninterruptible UPS power supplies, communication base stations, emergency EPS systems, solar street lights, etc. Inevitably, someone will compare them. How are they different?
When you discharge the battery (using it to power your device) and then charge it with your panel, this is called a charge cycle. We measure battery life not in years, but in how many cycles they can handle before they expire. The same goes for the battery and its cycle count.
Cycle life is also a function of depth of discharge (how much capacity is used before the battery is charged). A deeper discharge puts more stress on the battery, shortening its cycle life.
Depth of discharge refers to how much of the total capacity was used before charging the battery. When using the battery, the battery will not be fully discharged. Instead, they have a recommended drain depth: how much can be used before refilling.
Lead-acid batteries can only run to 50% depth of discharge. Go beyond that and you could negatively impact their longevity.
In contrast, lithium batteries can handle deep discharges of 80 percent or more. This essentially means they have higher usable capacity.
Lithium batteries are more efficient. This means more solar energy is stored and used.
For example, lead-acid batteries are only 80-85% efficient, depending on the model and conditions. This means that if you have 1,000 watts of solar power going into the battery, only 800-850 watts will be available after the charging and discharging process.
Lithium batteries are more than 95% efficient. In the same example, you would have over 950 watts of power available.
Changshu Wanlong Power Technology R&D Co., Ltd. is a lead-acid battery manufacturer from China. The company sells 12v deep cycle gel batteries all year round.
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