Salt battery

Recycling costs to be added to purchase cost of renewable energy storage batteries – new Australian legislation coming.

When looking at the cost of a battery system, either domestically or commercially or as an electric vehicle it is important to look at “total cost of ownership” of TCO.

This means not only considering the initial cost of the battery but;
the costs of all the components of a battery system that are needed for an installation including inverters, MPPT’s, communications etc.,
the length of time to install a complete system,
The running costs associated with the system, including maintenance,
The expected lifetime of the battery installation
End of life disposal costs.

Up until now, in Australia, end of life costs for batteries have not been considered. This is becoming increasingly problematic for lithium-ion batteries. Multiple lithium-ion chemistries need to have multiple processes for dismantling, recycling and recovery processing, meaning there is not a standard recycling process that can be put in place.

In fact, lithium phosphate batteries (LFP), which are a safer lithium-ion battery technology, due to it being less likely to catch fire, actually have less value when recycling, meaning LFP batteries have a higher upfront cost but will also have a higher recycling cost, although they are inherently safer than Li-NMC batteries.

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Protect yourself and prepare for power outages in coming bushfire season

As the current summer season approaches in Australia, we are receiving more warnings of a possibly severe bushfire season. With memories of the disasters of 2019 – 2020 many people still remember being without power for days and weeks due to power lines being brought down and the dangers of reconnecting the power grid.


This threat of bushfire is becoming an increasing and more serious and long-lasting reality every year, both in Australia and overseas.


Power supply companies are turning off power earlier, particularly in areas with above ground powerlines, when there is a threat of bushfires, to prevent their infrastructure causing more fires.


Particularly in rural areas, loss of power also affects access to water, as electric water pumps no longer work. This can be devasting to livestock as well as humans and often means there is no longer access to water to fight fires.With the interconnectedness of our current power supply this also means that a problem in one area can affect power supply in multiple other areas that may have not been affected by the original bushfire.

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SoNick – the Cradle to Grave certified battery

A crucial part of our new energy transition is the usage of batteries to store energy, either as backup power for when the grid goes down or to reduce energy costs, to stabilize the grid or in EV’s. This transition will involve trade-offs and by adhering to ESG principles companies can make sure their governance covers factors that make sure that the net result of this transition is positive from the environment and social angles.

Many battery manufacturing companies claim their batteries will be good for the environment, however they fail many of the ESG markers.

One way to ensure batteries or indeed any other product will be good for the environment overall is to make sure that all parts of a products life from a cradle to grave or life cycle assessment perspective are taken into account.

This includes taking into account;

  • Raw Material Extraction
  • Manufacturing
  • Internal and external production processes
  • Transportation
  • Life usage
  • End-of-Life disposal
  • System Boundary to ensure all relevant stages of the lifecycle are included

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Issues with electrical wiring when retrofitting a battery energy storage system

Most people that are looking at installing an energy storage system (battery and battery inverter) don’t realise that every installation is different and there is no one size fits all. Installations are very dependent on whether there is already solar PV in place and the current electrical wiring situation at the premises.

When you decide to connect a battery energy storage system to your already installed solar panels there are things that need to be considered that may not become apparent until the actual installation is to take place. These may make installing the battery system much more difficult, costly and time consuming but actually has nothing to do with the actual battery system itself.

When a house is built an electrician will have wired the house and hopefully the wiring meets current electrical standards at the time. However, electrical standards change over time and older houses may not have electrical wiring that meets current standards. Also, particularly with older houses wiring may become damaged or wear out over time.

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Domestic Case Study using SoNick batteries – SA

This domestic installation in rural South Australia was designed to run as a grid minimisation installation. Although the grid remains connected it is rarely used to power the house, although excess power is exported to take advantage of the feed in tariff available.

Before the battery installation this household had a 5 kW solar PV system installed with a Fronius solar inverter.

The battery installation was done in stages as requirements changed.

The original battery installation had one 9.6 kWh SoNick battery with 2 Victron 3 KVa Multigrid inverters and a Victron colour controller for communication.

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