non-flammable battery

Rural property using SoNick batteries for grid independence – Domestic Case Study

This domestic installation was designed to run as a grid minimisation installation. Although the grid remains available it is actually switched off.

The house is a rural property and is completely electric so electricity usage is higher than it could be for a normal suburban house. Water pumps, electric fences and all electric cooking can use a lot of electricity. Although the electric hot water uses evacuated tubes to heat with solar, this is often not enough in cooler months so the solar / battery system also heats the electric hot water tank.

The system consists of 11.2 KW QCells solar PV panels on a 25-degree pitch
1 x Victron 450/250 MPPT
2 x 9.6 kWh SoNick batteries which equates to 15.5 kWh recommended useable storage
1 x Victron 10 kVA Qattro inverter
1 x Victron Cerbo as the brains of the system which allows the whole system to be monitored remotely and any changes to the system can also be done remotely.

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The case for decentralised power proven after storm power outages

Windy winter weather tends to bring trees down on power lines, cutting off your power supply as many people in Victoria have discovered recently. During the storm that crossed Victoria on 13th February 2024 over 500,000 people lost power and a week later many people in Gippsland and the Dandenong’s are still without power and some have been told it may be some time before their power is restored.

One of the main advantages of decentralised power supplies is that you are not so reliant on things that are happening in the main power grid and can keep a power supply when other areas no longer have one.

There are many flow-on effects when the power grid fails, other than the lack of electricity to power your house or business that may not be immediately obvious if you haven’t experienced extended grid failures before.

When there is no power for many people that also means no water as pumps no longer work.

Now we live in a mainly cashless society when there is no power there is no money flow as ATM’s and electronic transactions are no longer possible. In our area, nearly all the shops had to close for this reason as they couldn’t do any transactions.

In our area also, as there was no power the local petrol station couldn’t operate which meant there was no fuel available for the generators that many people were surviving on, even if they had had the cash to make payments.

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Mobile Renewable Energy Systems for emergency services

A recent joint project between GridEdge, Earthworker Energy and DEECA was to build 3 prototype portable renewable energy systems to supply renewable power for replacement of large diesel generators in emergency response settings supporting DELWP, CFA and SES

The prototypes were;

– 58 kWh battery energy storage, 20 kVA inverter capacity, single phase and 15 kW PV in a custom-built shell on skids similar to current diesel generators

– 20 kWh battery energy storage, 5 kVA inverter capacity and 1.5 kW PV in a portable Trailer

– A portable site hut with built-in 9.6 kWh battery, 5 kVA inverter capacity and 5 kVA PV generation capacity

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SoNick battery replaces lead acid batteries in off-grid installation – case study.

People install battery systems for many reasons and likewise people choose battery technologies for various reasons.

For many years people have used lead acid batteries as a known battery technology, particularly in off grid installations. A battery of choice has often been used Telecom batteries which are replaced regularly from telecom installations that need guaranteed UPS (uninterrupted power supply) capabilities. As these batteries are often sold at a vastly reduced cost it is economical for off-grid households to add a large number of batteries to an off-grid system to allow for reduced capacity of the batteries.

Unfortunately, for lead acid battery systems the battery system operates at the capacity of the weakest battery so you are unable to use new lead acid batteries in older systems and would need to replace the whole bank of batteries when more capacity is needed.

Lead acid batteries are well known for having a “falling off the cliff reputation” and degrading very suddenly and quickly, often with no warning. This happens particularly often in cold or hot weather. Coincidentally this is often when batteries are needed the most for heating and cooling. At the same time, most people who live off grid have learnt to manage their electricity usage to only use what is available and to use a generator when batteries are unavailable.

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