That same study supported the decision for Pylontech, but so different now few years later, when it actually failed.
If you’re considering a temporary solution, in other words, you anticipate that you will succeed in getting the pylontech units replaced (and really, it is a lot of money, it makes sense to chase it a bit), you could look at a Hubble battery. It’s a bit contentious, I’m sure many forumites are currently doing that sucking-air-through-the-teeth thing, but I know at least one prominent installer Eastern Cape side who has a couple of these running traffic lights. It is not the most high end battery, but could do the trick.
There is another battery we tend to forget about. LBSA. They’ve also grown up from a guy assembling them in his garage to full compatibility.
I am looking at an alternative solution of either Hubble AM-5 or Freedom Won e-tower batteries. I’m not sure if I will win with the pylontech battery issue.
Any recommendations for reliable places to buy your batteries from, to ensure one is not ripped off. Do not want to overpay, want to try buy them direct and get approved installer to set it up.
I bought from Solar and Inverter Warehouse.
Current price of an E-Tower is R14 600.00 which in my opinion is fantastic.
I wish I was able to buy all my batteries for this price.
The cheapest one I bought from them at the time was R22 500.00 and the most expensive one (bought elsewhere) was R36 000.00
I would not recommend Hubble or FW e-towers. BSL has very good support locally, and they rarely need it (mostly only the 125Ah variant that was problematic).
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Thanks for this info!
The battery manufacturers are only the assemblers of the battery but do not manufacture the cells. Isn’t this the most significant component?
The AM-5 is at least LFP. The AM-2 is the cheapie using NMC cells, which is best avoided. But since this is not temporary, forget I said that.
I agree with @_a_a_a that I’d take a BSL over a eTower. It is essentially the same battery (they both use a Pace BMS).
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Livstainable currently have a special on the BlueNova RacPower DU series for around R19k. This is their more premium battery designed for daily use. 10yr warranty and >7500 cycle life. Worth a look.
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Thanks, will do some homework on this.
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I have the Lithium SA batteries and they still going strong.
Reviving this old topic.
I’m getting closer to having to make this decision, in my opinion probably the most difficult decision to make when building a solar system. The fact that I’m over thinking and over annalising as per my nature, is also not helping.
Did anything change in this landscape over the last 6 months, any new or different opinions?
I know Freedom Won Lite is the Ferrari and without thinking much it will be my first choice, however when starting to crunch the numbers and comparing, they are quite a bit more expensive than other options out there, in some cases well north of R1000 per kWh more expensive, even more if you compare prices based on actual usable capacity.
Also, what’s the feeling on Pylontech these days, how is their support and backup in SA? I see there is a new Pylontech UF5000 5.12 kWh module, specs look good and it is well priced.
I’ve also been checking out batteries but not for Victron. It’s not easy to get a clear picture of what the lie of the land is so I simply browse for any LFP battery new or not and try to get a feel that way.
I’m wary of used batteries that are up for sale far more than other brands. (I’m afraid Pylontech is the leader in this field)
By the same measure I’m impressed when a brand is not being sold off that often. The brand that is up there in this dept. is SolarMD. I paid them a visit and I was impressed..
SolarMD look decent, off the top of my head I can’t remember what the C rating on their batteries is.
The only negative I read about SolarMD is that they can make changes to your battery via their logger which is connected to the internet, changing the DOD limits, so in effect changing your battery capacity.
Personally I won’t be a fan of this at all, one day having 14 kWh capacity and a few months down the line only 13.5 because big brother decided what is best for me.
This sounds to me much like Tesla who keep moving the goal posts to fit their narative and fit their warranty period. I know Tesla is so strict on this that you actually lose the warranty on the Powerwall if it is not connected to the internet for a certain period.