Proper care and maintenance of your solar batteries are essential to prolong your batteries' lives and improve their overall performance. While batteries' lifespan and efficiency vary from one type to the next, they will always last longer and perform better when they're correctly maintained. One of the biggest causes of battery failure and performance issues is sulfation. These maintenance tips will help you to avoid this problem so that your solar batteries can continue working for longer.
What Is Sulfation?
Sulfation occurs when large sulfate crystals form on the negative lead plates of the battery. These prevent the necessary chemical reactions from occurring in the battery while also reducing the battery's active material, thereby diminishing its performance capabilities.
An insufficient charge in lead-acid batteries generally causes this problem. If your batteries are undercharged for prolonged periods, sulfation is more likely to occur.
Ensuring Proper Charge
Given the description above, you've probably gathered that one crucial way to avoid sulfation is to ensure that your batteries are sufficiently charged. This is one of the many reasons why it's essential to calculate your energy needs when designing your solar setup accurately. If your battery bank is too large to be fully charged by your solar panels, they're more likely to experience sulfation. Or, if your solar panels aren't producing enough energy for you during the day, and you're continually pulling excess energy from the battery bank, they won't get a full charge, and the same thing will occur.
Your battery bank and the solar array should be correctly sized so that the batteries can be fully charged when not in use but still be discharged regularly as well.
Checking Fluids and Charge
If you have a flooded lead-acid battery, you'll need to regularly check the fluid level and charge level. Make sure the battery is filled with distilled water to the appropriate level indicated on the battery. To check the charge or depth of discharge on this type of battery, you'll check the specific gravity and the voltage of the battery. For a 12V battery, a specific gravity of 1.26 and a voltage of 12.7 would indicate a 100% state of charge.
You only need to check fluid and charge levels for flooded lead-acid batteries, not AGM or gel batteries.
Cleaning Your Batteries
For all types of batteries, it's essential to clean the battery terminals regularly. First, remove the clamps (negative first) from the batteries. Use a mixture of baking soda and distilled water and scrub the terminals with a cleaning brush that isn't too coarse. Then, rinse the terminals with water, make sure the connections are tight and coat the metal with a sealant or high-temp grease.
If you care for your Sol-Ark batteries correctly, you'll prevent sulfation and keep them at peak performance for longer.
