Blog - Lithium Ion Battery Pros & Cons | A User's Guide

Author: Morgan

Aug. 19, 2024

Blog - Lithium Ion Battery Pros & Cons | A User's Guide

Lithium batteries are often seen as the vanguard of the alternative energy revolution. They offer great capacity, lifespan, and dependability. Are there reasons to choose anything else? What are the pros and cons of lithium ion batteries?

With competitive price and timely delivery, Lithium Storage sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.

While the advantages of lithium batteries are very real, other types of batteries still have their place. Especially since batteries can represent a significant investment, it pays to do thorough research before you buy your batteries.

We want to lay out clearly the advantages of lithium batteries and the impact they can have on your wind and solar system. Not only do we love selling lithium batteries, but our goal is always to create empowered and knowledgeable customers.

This guide can serve as a handy comparison tool, giving you both an at-a-glance and an in-depth reference that will inform your system planning and purchasing.

Lithium-Ion Battery Pros

Requires Less Maintenance

The thought of having to maintain a battery system can intimidate new users and those who don't consider themselves well-versed enough yet to tackle the task. Lithium batteries offer a much easier alternative.

Flooded lead acid batteries'the type people are probably most familiar with since they're nearly ubiquitous in motor vehicles'require careful temperature regulation and ventilation from the battery bank to the outside.

Lead acid batteries need to be periodically watered'which is basically exactly what it sounds like. Water is added to replenish what's naturally lost from the battery's electrolyte solution.

Owners of lithium batteries don't have to worry about things like this. As long as the batteries are used in accordance with instructions and aren't damaged by disasters, you're largely good.

If flooded lead acid batteries are like owning a dog, lithium batteries are more like a cactus.

Long Life Cycle

While they may require a heftier up-front investment than other batteries, their long natural lifespan changes the big picture.

Let's take a look at a popular, high-quality sealed AGM battery. This battery has a typical lifespan of 2,050 cycles at 50% depth of discharge (DoD)'the amount a battery can discharge divided by its total charging capacity.

It's difficult to put battery lifespans in units of time, since your demand and charging frequency impacts this greatly, but these are very good ratings for this type of battery. Now let's compare it to a lithium battery.

The rated lifespan of this battery is 10,000 cycles at 80% DoD. That higher depth of discharge rating means that, in addition to the naturally longer lifespan, the lithium battery charges less frequently and experiences less decay.

With the current pricing of AGM, lead acid, and lithium batteries, the cost difference between two equivalent (kWh capacity) battery banks would be approximately $ for quality AGM and $ for lithium.

However, over the 20+ year lifespan of the lithium, you would have had to replace the AGM batteries 3 to 4 times, meaning you will have saved over $ over the life of the system.

Users' actual experiences will vary, but this general rubric shows you how much of a difference the lithium battery's life cycle makes on your budget.

Little to No Charging Resistance

Resistance is a factor in battery systems that prevents discharge at full efficiency. This is not inherently bad, as it can keep downstream appliances safe. When it comes to charging the battery though, this resistance just gets in the way.

As long as you're using a charge controller and dumping excess loads, you want your batteries to charge as quickly and efficiently as possible, and that's exactly what lithium batteries offer you.

Spend less time charging your system, and more time living your life.

Low Weight-to-Watts Ratio

In an ideal world, you're not going to have to pick up and move your batteries very much at all. Still, you will have to handle them at some point, and it's always nicer to have less lifting to do.

To get the same power output from flooded lead acid batteries as one lithium battery, you would end up with 176 pounds of battery to deal with, compared to just under 80 pounds for lithium batteries.

The weight-to-watts ratio is less a practical advantage than a measurement of battery efficiency. Lithium batteries simply do more with less.

Less Space Required

Similar to above, this is another factor that make lithium batteries superior from a logistical perspective. Since you need fewer batteries to reach higher voltages, lithium batteries take up less space in your home, lodge, or cabin.

While not a make-or-break factor, it's definitely nice to have, especially if your house has a smaller square footage. Add in the fact that you don't need a ventilation system, and lithium batteries give you much more space to live your life.

Lithium-Ion Battery Cons

Higher Up-Front Cost

We addressed long term costs above, and while that can offset the cost of your lithium battery over the course of its lifetime, it would be irresponsible to ignore the fact that the up-front price tag can be overwhelming.

Long-term savings are great, but they don't mean much to you if you just don't have the money up front to justify the investment.

The good news is that, as time goes on, the prices of lithium batteries are dropping, but if you have a limited budget right now, it might make more sense to look at sealed AGM or lead acid batteries.

Temperature Sensitivity

Lithium batteries can be sensitive to temperature extremes, particularly cold temperatures below 32°F. Charging lithium batteries when they are at or below this temperature may result in permanent damage to the battery.

While many batteries come with internal heating systems, those systems can drain a battery quickly.  If you location has the potential for long periods of cold weather, we recommend storing the batteries in a climate controlled area for best performance.

Shipping

You may be aware of the overheating problems some early lithium batteries had. While the technology of the batteries has greatly improved to address this, airline and shipping regulations have been slow to keep up.

Airlines require expensive protective measures for lithium batteries and generally limit the number of batteries they'll accept as cargo.

This means that these batteries are usually shipped via freight, which is more expensive and takes longer. 

Conclusion

We're big believers in lithium-ion batteries. They're potential game-changers when it comes to long-term alternative energy storage. We also believe in being transparent about the shortcomings of technology we love.

While there are real disadvantages to lithium-ion batteries, we believe that for many of our customers, the benefits outweigh these drawbacks. You know your goals and circumstances best, but hopefully we can help you make an informed decision. 

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The company is the world’s best wholesale lithium batteries supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.

FAQ

How long will a lithium battery last?

It's more informative to look at the lifetime cycles of a battery than to estimate years of use. But to get a clearer idea of what that means for a median user: this SimpliPhi lithium battery is rated for 10,000 cycles and has a 10-year warranty.

That's not a 1-to-1 correlation, but it can be a useful ball park for planning the lifespan of your system.

Will lithium batteries get less expensive?

They have over the last several years, so it's reasonable to assume they will continue to do so. Supply chain and other issues may cause temporary changes, but the general trend is a steady decrease in lithium battery prices.

Should you keep lithium batteries fully charged?

No, lithium batteries work best when they are neither fully charged nor discharged, but rather left with a small amount of headroom either way. 

Being fully charged or discharged means the lithium ions are concentrated solely on one side of the battery, which causes more wear than if there were some ions on both sides. 

The advantages and disadvantages of lithium polymer ...

Lithium ion polymer battery is one of lithium ion battery. But compare to liquid li-ion battery, it has high energy density, miniaturization, ultra-thin, lightweight, and also  high security and low cost, and other obvious advantages, is a new type of battery. here we summarize the advantages and disadvantages of lithium polymer batteries.


Advantage:

1.     Safety performance is good

Lithium-ion polymer battery with aluminum composite flexible packaging in the structure, different from liquid metal case of batteries, in the event of a safety hazard, liquid batteries easy explosion, but lithium ion polymer battery most has meteorism.


2.     More thin thickness, and can do more thin

Ultra-thin, batteries could assemble into a credit card. Ordinary liquid lithium battery use custom shell, after the plug is the method of the cathode, thickness of 3.6 mm the following technical bottlenecks, polymer batteries, there is no this problem, the thickness can be below 1 mm, can meet the demand of current mobile direction.

3.     Light-weight

Lithium polymer battery using polymer electrolyte  without metal shell as a protective outer packing. Same specifications of steel shell polymer battery weight is equal capacity lithium electric light 40%, a 20% aluminum battery light.

4.     Big capacity

Lithium Polymer battery is the same size of the steel shell battery, the capacity is 10 to 15% more than high aluminum battery 5 ~ 10%, be the first choice of the color screen mobile phones and MMS, now on the market a new color and MMS phones are mostly used lithium polymer batteries

5.     Small internal impedance

The internal resistance of the polymer batteries is less than liquid batteries, the current domestic internal resistance of the polymer batteries can even do below 35 m Ω, greatly reduced the battery power consumption, extend the standby time of mobile , can reach with international level. The support of large discharge current polymer li-ion battery, the ideal choice of remote control model to become the most promising alternative products of nimh batteries.

6.     Shape can be customized

Manufacturers no need to limited to the standard shape, able to make the appropriate economic size. Lithium Polymer battery can increase or decrease the thickness of the batteries according to the customer's demand, the development of new batteries models, price cheap, open mold cycle is short, some even can be tailored according to the mobile shape, to make full use of the battery shell space, improve battery capacity


7.     Better discharge characteristic

Li-Polymer battery using gel electrolyte, compared to liquid electrolyte, colloid electrolyte with smooth discharge characteristics and higher discharge platform.

8.     Simple PCM design

Because of using polymer materials, which made batteries no fire, no explosion, batteries itself has enough safety, therefore, polymer battery protection circuit design can consider omitting PTC and fuse, thereby saving the cost of battery

 

Disadvantages

1.     Compared with lithium ion battery energy density and cycle number are falling

2.     Cost higher

3.     There is no standard shape, most battery manufacturing for high volume consumer market

4.     Compared with lithium ion batteries, price and energy is higher.


If you are looking for more details, kindly visit battery lithium supplier.

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