The Deep Cycle Battery
Deep Cycle Battery is Leading the Charge in Energy Storage
The Deep Cycle Battery is now becoming a major component of a renewable energy powered system. The automotive Lead Acid Battery used to start car engines, are one of the oldest design of rechargeable battery in existence. The lead acid battery was primarily used for the storage of DC power.
They were originally only used in early commercial vehicles due to their size and weight. These types of wet battery designs have literally dominated the marketplace for many years ever since their invention way back in the early 1800’s. They still continue to be an important automotive component to the point were there is one in every vehicle on the roads.
Today, automotive batteries used to start gasoline and diesel engines, are smaller, cheaper and more cost effective than their earlier bigger deep cycle battery cousins, supplying greater starting and surge currents than ever before at a fraction of their original price. Not only does the lead acid battery provide the correct amount of electricity needed to start engines, but they also supply electricity for the ignition system, lights, indication, stereos and other such electronic features found on today’s modern vehicles.
The energy produced by an automotive “lead acid battery” occurs via an internal chemical process which involves lead (hence their name), lead oxide and a liquid acid solution called the electrolyte. These solid lead and lead oxide plates are submerged within an electrolytic solution that consists of a very small percentage of sulphuric acid ( H2SO4 ) mixed with distilled water.
When electrical power is drawn from the battery, a chemical reaction takes place between the plates and liquid electrolyte releasing electrons. These free electrons in the form of an electrical current flow through electrical conductors mounted on the battery and out via lead terminals providing the electricity required to start the car.
As the lead acid battery becomes discharged, the sulphuric acid forms deposits onto the lead plates, but when the lead acid battery is recharged again, the sulphuric acid breaks down and returns back into their separate lead and lead oxide components. Heat is generated by this constant charging and discharging of the battery evaporating the water inside.
This evaporation meant that older lead acid batteries needed to be “topped-up” with more distilled water on a monthly basis but the modern maintenance free lead acid battery is fully sealed against leakage in which the electrolyte in the form of a gel is contained in separate compartments are now used.
The result is that these fully sealed batteries can be rotated upside down or positioned sideways in the event of an accident without any risk of an acid leakage. Also these modern batteries have safety valves fitted which allow the venting of fumes during the charging, the discharging and changes in atmospheric pressure when driving at altitude.
The lead acid battery is the only batteries suitable to be used in alternative energy systems but the continuous cycle of discharging a battery into a load (night time hours) and then recharging the battery (sunlight hours) many times over requires a different type of battery as not all lead acid batteries are the same. The most important requirement of a battery is whether it is a Deep Cycle Battery or a Shallow Cycle Battery because what batteries like best is being charged steadily and gradually to maintain their voltage.
Consider automotive starting batteries. These batteries are cheap to buy but are designed to provide high amperes of current for very short periods of time (less than 10 seconds) to operate the starter motor and turn over the engine. After the car has started, the battery is then trickle charged by the cars alternator.
Even on cold frosty mornings the cars battery is only discharged to less than 10% of its rated capacity at start up so automotive batteries are designed for this very shallow cycle service, (100% to 90% state of charge). However, in extremely cold climates, the car battery needs to be continuously kept fully charged when not in use.
As a car battery is designed to deliver high currents for very short periods of time it is therefore made of many thin lead plates giving a large surface area for the chemical reaction to occur. These thin lead plates do not have the necessary mechanical strength for repeated cycling over a period of many years and wear out very quickly after only 200 to 400 cycles. Therefore shallow cycle car batteries which although they work, are not designed for a long term solar power or wind power system which requires a much deeper cycling service.
Deep Cycle Batteries on the other hand are designed to be repeatedly charged and discharged by as much as 80% of their full capacity (100% to 20% state of charge) without sustaining any serious damage to the cells before recharging. This makes deep cycle batteries an ideal choice for solar photovoltaic and wind power systems, as well as marine applications, golf buggies, fork lift trucks and other such electric vehicle applications. Although the deep cycle battery uses the same chemical reactions to store and generate energy as their lighter automotive battery cousins, the deep cycle battery is made very differently.
The physical size of a “deep cycle battery” is much larger than a regular car battery due to the construction and size of their lead plates (electrodes). These plates are made of solid lead usually doped with Antimony (Sb) and are many times thicker than the thinner lightweight plates of a standard car battery.
This means that deep cycle batteries can be repeatedly discharged almost all the way down to a very low charge and it is not uncommon for deep cycle batteries to be emptied (discharged) to as much as 20% of their total capacity before energy ceases flowing from the battery.
So to summarise, the lead-acid battery is the perfect choice for automotive use as it is reliable, inexpensive, and delivers high starting currents for a very short time period, for example when starting a vehicle. But for a home powered alternative energy systems, the deep cycle battery is the way to go as they can be repeatedly charged and discharged many times over to a much lower discharge value.
Deep cycle batteries also have high power density and the lowest self-discharge rate among rechargeable batteries, but you should try to maintain sensible discharge rates, because high discharge rates lower the batteries storage efficiency.
If you are thinking of installing a wind turbine or solar panels then some form of energy storage is a must, especially if you want to live “off-grid”. The deep cycle battery allows you to store power in the form of chemical energy for use later making them an amazingly easy power solution.
But a deep cycle battery storage system can be expensive if you want a large storage or high voltage battery bank. Also your storage capacity may be limited by the physical size of your battery bank. So getting second hand lead acid batteries from golf-carts, boats or even aeroplanes and recondition them yourself can save you a lot of money.
To find out more about “Lead Acid Batteries” and how you can use them as part of a Home Solar system, or to explore the advantages and disadvantages of using a deep cycle battery as an alternative energy storage device, then Click Here and get your copy of one of the top battery builders guide from Amazon today and learn how to build, rebuild and recondition deep cycle lead-acid batteries, and get your deep cycle battery bank from an idea to reality.
Is it just me or do the starter batteries discharge more slowly? At least that’s what it says in the specs.
Thanks a lot for this informative piece, kindly tell me what’s the best efficient solar panel dimensions in terms of width and length because you find solar panels come in different sizes?
Photovoltaic panels are available in different sizes because they have different wattage ratings, clearly an 80W panel is smaller than a 250W panel as it has less PV cells. 60 cell and 72 cell panels are standard sizes.
Hi,
I need to replace the 6 lead acid batteries in the Matiz conversion I bought and am feeling my way in here. A few questions are rattling round in my head and I’d be glad of some steers if possible.
1. Sealed v Low Maint Lead Acids. Is there much to choose in terms of performance/reliability etc? Access is not an issue, but not sure if there are any specifics that relate to using Gel batteries for the comparatively high currents for traction uses. Or is a liquid electrolyte better? (and while we are at it, what does AGM stand for?)
2. The car has 1 Trojan 130Ah & 5 others that I cannot find any name on. I suspect they are US Battery units from the handle and terminal configuration. Somewhere in the back of my head I have it that changing one battery from a set is a bad idea. I was thinking that the rule is change one, change them all……….. but I may have made that up. Can anybody comment on this please?
3. I am looking at the US31TMX Sealed Deep Cycle Battery which shows as a 130Ah unit on some sites, but I presently find the tecnical spec is confusing. It says Amp Hours (20Hr rate 130mins) then says 25A for 227 min and 75A for 58 mins. What does all this mean? It looks to me as though this is saying: 75A for about 1hr ~ 75Ah…. or 25A for 227 mins (nearly 4 hrs) ~100Ah…… if you can point me at something definitive I will get my head around it.
I have read about batteries on the site and know more than I did, but would be glad of a pointer to a glossary on some of this if it is there. 😕
Thanks
I have a Unite 24v scooter motor and am exploring an alternative to SLA batteries. This battery is 3.7v 2600maH. I did simple calculations and calculated it would take 7 of them to power the motor at 25.9v and get about 18ah. It just sounds too cheap and simple to be right. Not to mention the super light weight. It seems too good to be true. Am I missing something? 🙁