Solar System with 96VDC charge Controller

Here is a good source of battery information.

Battery University Homepage

It is more common to have a 96 volt input inverter that converts everything to ac such as 230V or 120V. rather than direct usage of dc. A 96 volt dc to 24 volt dc converter seems like an expensive item to have rated for the full output, unless there is a special or unusual load. The un-paralleling of the batteries in this case may not pay for the operation cost and initial investment for the extra power supply, but there may be a special case in the details that we can not see from here.

Good old electrical engineering should win out as a guide, but there will be many rather young opinions out there as to the actual cost effective path to take. The technology available at the consumer level is an order of magnitude more sophisticated than what we could buy over the counter even 5 years ago.

Higher voltage soon becomes more efficient. Right back in the dawn of electric supply, Mr Edison's incandescent lamps dimmed noticeably for 2% drop. Building supply regulations used to dictate 2% regulation for lighting circuits. A 2% drop at 6 Volts compared 12 volt is half the voltage at double the current - 4 times the copper. Copper is expensive & twice the insulation material is needed @ 6V.

I have had 6V battery car, the lights dimmed under load & windscreen wipers would not start with headlamps on!! No trouble with 12v battery.

The standard solar panel is ~ 10 amps at 24V. It is much easier to loop panels in series with a standard cable/plug than parallel where current & cable/plug size must go up along the run.

Devices like diodes/thyristors drop 1 volt regardless of their voltage rating, so watts loss can be cut by higher voltage and lower current for same power.

Solar panels are silicon diodes, they do not reverse conduct, so parallel is not a problem. At 96V a diode to avoid feedback is not much loss. There is a problem if some panels are sun-shaded - different voltage - but output is better with series. It is always best to have diodes from each charge source to avoid back-feed - one charger can continue to work.

So much equipment works at 24V that converters from higher voltage are common & efficient. Compact fluorescent & LED lights have had built-in converters for over 20 years by the million [billion?].They are not complicated compared to a light switch, which now works on Wi--Fi, and do not add much to overall failures.

Wiring Regulations for buildings are now specifying voltage surge protection because of the vulnerable electronic LED lighting [lighting is a safety concern in large buildings due to number of people & fire risk/panic if mains fails] & proliferation of electronics.

It is not even possible to 500V megger-test circuits because lighting & timers etc are electronic & could be damaged.

If reliability is primary, then simplicity is good, but all faults must be considered and often duplication is needed.