Will a Li-ion Storage Battery Power Homes?

Where is the lithium supposed to come from?

The lithium comes from mining it out of the local landfills where I and and about 300+ million other Americans toss our old lithium, NiCad and NiMH battery's when they die far short of their supposed 1000 - 2000 recharge life cycles.

As far as I know actual battery recycling of anything other than lead acid batteries (core exchange program) is still dismally low.

Like me most people feel that if the old battery doesn't get me enough money to justify the effort to recycle it or enough money off of its new replacement it will go in the trash first.

$5 core exchange off of my old $35 -$80 car battery sure! Nothing to $1 for my old $100+ laptop battery or other expensive portable device batteries equals trash can.

your gain in all this comes from, A, creating some of your own power to store in the battery. And B, soon the utility companies will charge you by what time of day you use power. Through a battery backup, you can avoid peak rate charges, and power outages.

If the battery is small enough, and you have a long enough drive to work and back, you could take it with you, and let your vehicle make some extra power to charge your battery for the house. Systems like this are already on the market in developing countries

I like the idea of a car as a UPS, but an electric car doesn't make "...extra power". Power from breaking, etc., is used by the car or you'll need to get from a different power source. A days worth of driving will not have a net gain in power production.

Avoiding peak power rates has some merit, but its hard to imagine residential electricity use justifying the cost of an expensive battery bank. Again, the dual use within a car has some merit, but we'll see here in a few years when the first Prius buyers have to spend $10,000 to replace the batteries in their cars.

And nevermind the problem of recycing these things every few years.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank IanR; cwarner7 11; and tcmtech for restoring my faith in my fellow mans ability to think ahead and compare the results. You guys are on the right track. Seriously.

As someone who installs and designs PV and micro-hydro systems for grid-tie and off-grid power systems I am excited with the prospect of a new, efficient battery. Lead-acid batteries work, but they seem to be the weak link in the system. For the ones I use, at 115lbs each and $250+/- each, storing 300 Ah @ 6 volts they require their own area and are, frankly, a pain in the ass. On the other hand, I don't get how Li-Ion batteries are any sort of panacea for zero-emission homes. They store, not produce the electricity. Certainly the production of these batteries are not zero-emmision. Also, the one good thing about lead-acid batteries is they are 100% recyclable. How about Li-Ion? And, furthmore, most of the western world has a pretty reliable grid... why would these homes need a weeks worth of electricity storage? At current prices, a Li-Ion battery setup would run $10000(US) for 3 days of storage. The lead-acid option runs about $2000 (US). A cheap gen-set runs $500-$700 plus $15-20 in gas for the same storage. For 99% of the western world, a gen-set will cover 100% of power needs for when the power goes out. So, unless there is something to cut the cost of Li-Ion by 95%, they are impractical.

In all likelyhood, it's probably just another example of some company getting millions of our tax dollars, in green energy grants, to come up with another impractical solution.

Granted, at one time, climbing on top of a 36 story tall fire cracker and riding it to the moon was a pretty impractical idea too.

I guess with an electric car, you would have to have some serious downhill runs to charge a spare battery pack. Or if your car did not have regenerative braking, you could drive a few generators off of the vehicles driveshafts that were engaged by an electric clutch on the genheads, to slow the vehicle,but yes, quite too expensive on an electric. The lithium ion battery pack, i am quite sure, will have to be exchanged for a charged battery. A whole new service industry, running batteries around town. There are already plans to set up battery exchange programs for EVs in Europe, possibly like filling stations where you stop and swap, for a fee. The main merit to making your own power is that basically only you or god can shut off your service, and with solar panels now approaching and available for $1-2 per watt, Your payback period on a DIY install is just a few years, not decades anymore. Before I get bombarded with questions, here is a link for the prices of solar panels from some major manufacturers: http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/surveys/free-solar-panel-price-survey/

Hello i (Manas Sinha, Lecturer in piet college, rourkela, orissa, India) don't get how SOLAR power will be replacement for Li-ion storage battery, because our requirement in more in case of home appliances.......

thanks

manas

THERE IS ONLY 80% EFFICIENCY IN POWER CONVERSION FROM AD TO DC IN IDEAL CONDITIONS. SO, WE HAVE A LOSS OF POWER IN THIS CASE AS IT INVOLVES TWO OF THE ABOVE STEPS.

AND ALSO, PRESENTLY THE USAGE OF SOLAR PANELS FOR ENERGY PRODUCTION IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE ONE BASED ON THEIR EFFICIENCY AND MAINTENANCE.

AND THE THIRD, USAGE OF LI-ION BATTERIES FOR STORAGE IS NOT A GOOD OPTION CONSIDERING THEIR RECYCLING PROCESS, SPACE CONSUMED TO ENERGY STORAGE RATIO (YOU SPEAK OF PORTABILITY:( ) AND

FINALLY, YOU SPEAK OF ZERO EMISSION HOMES, IT ACTUALLY MEANS THAT ALL THE POWER CONSUMED BY THE PRODUCTS CANNOT BE GENERATED INDOOR. SO, ENERGY STORING IS NOT ENERGY GENERATION. THIS DISCUSSION LED US TO A GOOD THOUGHT.THANKS ALL THE GUYS FOR THE POSTS.