Living Off The Grid

The most important part of battery maintenance is to have a properly designed and installed solar power system, including a reliable charge controller, breaker boxes, inverter and the batteries themselves. Assuming you have all of this in order, how do you get the most life out of your batteries?

First, be sure to practice proper safety, such as turning off the battery charger and disconnecting the power from your PV and other power sources. Learn more about safety here.

Prolonging the Life of Your Solar Power Battery Backup System by Maintaining a Healthy Battery Bank:

• Your battery bank should be located in an area with plenty of ventilation and free of flammable materials. Many people use metal shelving, but this is not advised for obvious reasons. Concrete cinder blocks are neither flammable nor highly conductive. But most people just use wooden shelving, as pictured.
• Regularly check electrolyte levels and charge level. If it is a maintenance-free battery, top up with distilled water if necessary. Never use tap water!
• Once every few months you should clean around the battery terminals with warm water and coat the terminals with Vaseline or terminal grease.
• Never let your battery totally discharge, as it may not ever fully recover.
• Always wrap the handle of metal-handled tools in electrical tape. Use plastic handled tools whenever possible. Having the handle touch the opposite post when tightening or loosening the other post is very bad news for you and your battery.
• Match your battery bank to the size of your PV system. Too many batteries or not enough batteries could cause large swings in charge, thus reducing charge capacity over time.
• Buy the good batteries. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for. You might save a few bucks on less-expensive batteries, but if they don’t last at least five years you’ll just end up paying more in the long-run. Try to get batteries with the largest capacity because they usually last longer due to design elements like thicker plates.
• Keep the temperature in your battery bank area between 30 and 75 degrees fahrenheit. This may require added insulation, planting a tree, and other environmentally-friendly, energy-conscious ways of maintaining a more constant temperature.
• Make sure your batteries are "topped off" / fully charged once every three or four weeks. This may require you to turn off all appliances and lights in the house on a sunny day long enough for every battery in the bank to fully charge. If there is not enough sun, consider using a backup generator.

Battery backup systems can be even more expensive than to just use grid power if they are not properly maintained and the homeowner is forced to go buy new batteries every few years. The information above is by no means all-inclusive, and it isn’t coming from a “solar expert”. If you have or are considering installing an off-grid, battery backed-up photovoltaic system (or any renewable energy system for that matter), I advise you to check out some of these resources and tools to help you get the most bang for your battery buck:

• Solar Expert on Battery Safety
• Easty-to-Use Universal Battery Monitor
• Rver’s Guide to Solar Battery Charging
• Types of Lead Acid Batteries
• Off Grid VS Grid Tied
• An Unusual Case-Study Where Grid-Tied with Batteries Were Used