When are we gonna see battery powered grow lights?

[Blew Hiller]

Do they have the batteries lasting that long now? I haven't really looked at it in years, but it used to be the cost of everything made ROI tough to ever hit (depends how much sun you get where you are too I suppose) and the major plus side was you weren't burning something to make electricity and adding pollution to the environment. As the batteries aren't cheap, which is one of the major reasons electric cars are so expensive and I have read that those batteries the expected battery life is under 5 years.

We designed our solar system to add, in the future, a sufficient amount of batteries to power everything we need, which is roughly equal to our solar collection. Currently there are 10-year warrantied excellent li-ion battery storage from Panasonic....but the price is very high. People we trust in the industry agreed that we are better waiting for the price to drop....much like early lcd tv's which, 10 years later, are 1/10th the cost. It's unlikely the price will drop much before the end of the Federal Tax Credit, so we will have to decide for a 30% tax break in hand, or wait a few more years. Currently we are grid-tied and net-meter our daily excess to the electric utility and they credit us (what we use overnight).

 

[TurboBucket]

Having energy Independence would be outstanding.

The one thing you don't hear talked about are all the toxic metals in the PV cells themselves. The manufacturing process is dirty and energy intensive. There is no real recycling program in place for them yet and who knows how long till there will be. So until then most of them end up in landfills. They're not the end all solution to power generation.
Wardencliffe (sp) tower- Nikolas Tesla- standing wave generation. Now that's an interesting power source.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Do they have the batteries lasting that long now?

I found this article:
What is the Best Battery for Solar Storage in 2018? | EnergySage
...which states that a homeowner would generally have to end up replacing their batteries at least once during the expected lifetime of the solar cells. But there are several variables involved, here - and the article discusses that - just like with any "How long will it last?" question about a battery's lifetime.

I don't know enough to vet the article. Err... @Blew Hiller , what do you think of it?

 

[Blew Hiller]

I found this article:
What is the Best Battery for Solar Storage in 2018? | EnergySage
...which states that a homeowner would generally have to end up replacing their batteries at least once during the expected lifetime of the solar cells. But there are several variables involved, here - and the article discusses that - just like with any "How long will it last?" question about a battery's lifetime. I don't know enough to vet the article. Err... @Blew Hiller , what do you think of it?

It's a good general overview...and yes, even the "best" Panasonic batteries are warrantied for 10 years, whereas most panels are 25 years (no moving parts, well built). Demand from electric cars, hopefully, will drive improved battery technology, more efficient production, and (again) hopefully lower prices.

 

[Bluenoser]

Just another example of how weed will save the world, once we solve the growing weed via battery problem, we will have also inadvertently solved the worlds energy problems

 

[TorturedSoul]

Lol, yeah.

How to solve the world's energy problem: Make 7.7 billion people follow basic common sense energy conservation practices, use energy efficient things, stop manufacturing/selling/buying/throwing away junk, et cetera. Or build a Dyson Sphere around Sol and live on the inner surface of that. Realistically, the latter solution is unrealistic because it'd be very likely to take pretty much all of the resources in this solar system (including every planet, lol) to create one of those. Then again... I don't know if the former solution would be all that much easier, in practical terms .

If it weren't for things like cannabis laws and helicopters, I'd figure out a way to install skylights (preferably ones that could open, so as not to lose a percentage of and attenuate the light-energy due to it having to pass through at least one and probably two layers of glass) and grow with natural light.

 

[LEDXpert]

I'll keep this as short as possible.

We see higher efficiencies in electric cars because it is changing the propulsion system from a combustion motor to an electric motor. It is more efficient use of BTU potentials. It has nothing to do with batteries. A fuel cell car is an electric car but instead of batteries it stores its energy as hydrogen gas. I've seen home solar systems use hydrogen instead of batteries.

Every time you change a voltage scheme you typically have 10-20% loss. Meaning if you take DC battery and make AC you have losses. If you take AC and charge a DC battery you have losses. That is just from electronics. Then charging and discharging batteries they have internal resistances which further makes losses (why batteries get hot). Lead Acid is still the cheapest per unit of energy storage, easiest to charge/discharge and maintain, and most common it is just not as good of a storage of energy per weight and volume which is why you see lithium ion in portable electronics and cars where weight is important and lead acid in stationary storage areas.

Solar makes sense because you are getting energy for free you just have to invest in the harvesting equipment (solar panels, inverters, batteries etc.) Tesla battery wall pack makes sense because you can store overages or charge it during off peak and discharge during peak. Though less efficient, than just using power out of the wall the differences in peak rates allows you to save money.

Grow lighting, even with LED, is still energy intensive. Most grow lighting electrical schemes take in AC voltage so you'd have to make a custom version to run on your battery voltage which could be 12/24/48/96 ( a lot of variance). You'd still need an inverter.

So if you can get some solar in to batteries and get an inverter you saved on power you purchased but running battery will only hurt efficiency not help.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Nice post, LEDXpert!

I look at battery-powered (strong) lighting as being a thing to use when you cannot access electrical mains, and will continue to do so for a while. Mostly due to those efficiency hits, but because of the added expense, too. I just don't see a need for it, otherwise.

When doing some reading (skimming) the other day, I read some brief statement or other about a potential(?) battery technology that involved seawater - but apparently the company that was doing R&D on that went under. I don't have a clue what that is all about.

You mentioned hydrogen fuel cells. I read a bit about Honda having done some work in that area, but it was some years ago (>10). I figured that Honda might be as good a brand to read about in this regard and any of them, since it continued to sell CNG-powered Civics for so long, so I did a quick search to see the current state of Honda vis-à-vis hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. I found a Car and Driver review of the 2017 Honda Clarity:

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2017-honda-clarity-fuel-cell-first-drive-review

You can think of the Clarity sort of like a heavy four-door Accord. A really heavy Accord, lol; I read that, even with an aluminum hood, trunk lid, fenders, and doors... it still weighs more than 4,000 pounds. You might also think of it as a mature Accord. The exterior styling isn't quite as "love it or hate it" as, for example, a 1972 Saab, lol, but it is a little different. Call it "understated futuristic," perhaps. The review mentions the two-piece rear window (to aid visibility, maybe for the older drivers who never learned to use those things stuck to the outside of each front door ), and compares this thing to the original Honda Insight. It reminds me of the second-generation (1988-1991) Honda CRX, but maybe the author of the review had yet to be born when those vehicles were being sold new.

Motivation is via an electric motor, so the torque is pretty much instantaneous; it's certainly no rocket, but it's not a dog, either. The fuel cell takes a bit of time to reach full output, so Honda includes a small - both in capacity and physical size - battery. Running full-tilt bozo, the driver can drain it in "well under a minute," but this is okay, because its function appears to be that of a bridge between the fuel cell and the electric motor.

The car is not cheap, and the fuel does not appear to be, either. Offsetting that is the fact that it is available for lease for $369/month (when the article was written, last year) - it doesn't even look like one can purchase a hydrogen-fueled Clarity outright) - and the $15,000(!) worth of hydrogen that Honda gives the leasee. According to the folks at Car and Driver, that might be enough fuel to drive 50,000 miles.

There are two downsides to this vehicle, as far as I'm concerned. The first is the lack of storage; the cargo space is relatively small and, more importantly, appears to be pretty awkward in its layout. That might not be a show-stopper for those who either don't carry a lot of bulky items or who are willing to place them in the back seat area (perhaps the toddlers can go in the trunk ). However, the second downside will be a show-stopper to a great many people who might otherwise be considered potential customers - there is a great lack of retail hydrogen fuel stations in the United States! There are some in California. Compared to the many, many gasoline fuel stations, the number of hydrogen fuel stations could be considered to be far closer to "several" (or even "a few" ) than to "lots."

But if those two downsides are not ones that you would consider to be a problem, and you don't mind the thought of leasing the vehicle instead of purchasing it (and can afford the lease payments, of course), this car may well be worthy of consideration, IMHO. It is what it is: A mature, somewhat luxurious automobile with room for five (assuming the three passengers sharing the back seat aren't linebackers, and not opposed to sitting rather close to each other), that is quiet, presumably carries the fragrance of "Honda reliability," and one that you will not spend a cent on fuel for during the first 50,000 miles or so.

Maybe we shouldn't even think of it as a hydrogen-powered vehicle at all (aside from the obvious fact that it is, ergo the need to live within a reasonable distance of a hydrogen fuel station). Instead, consider it as something that it also is: A nice automobile with an electric motor instead of a gasoline engine - but one that actually has a good range, and that can be completely refueled in three to five minutes instead of taking hours to refuel. In other words... a pretty nice ride for the 21ˢᵗ century!