Store More Power with Battle Born Lithium
In our desire to offer our customers the complete system from solar panel to battery, we have now partnered with Battle Born Batteries. They specialize in manufacturing high performance LiFePO4 batteries ideal for marine and RV applications, providing the most energy storage in limited spaces. All their batteries are backed by an awesome 10 year warranty and are made right here in the USA at their factory in Reno, NV.
BB10012-100Ah BBGC3-270Ah BB8D-270Ah
Our Battle Born Retrofit Story
We had a sealed AGM 200Ah bank on our Dufour 382, Blake. We've been trying to source lithium ion batteries for over a year, but found it very difficult to ship any outside of the USA. We're super excited that as part of this partnership we will be adding two of Battle Born's lithium batteries to our own boat. We're honestly embarrassed to admit that our old AGM bank had already deteriorated in our one year in the tropics.
We had no idea how much the higher temperature coefficient would negatively affect our battery life in the warmer waters of the Caribbean. Living off grid for the last decade, we usually cycle through a lead acid bank every 4-5 years, so ONE year to us was unimaginable. However, it is our reality, and we now hear the battery alarm go off by 2am... even with our 730Watts of bimini mounted, SunPower flexible solar panels.
After spending a few days docked at Just Catamarans in Dania Beach, we now have two new 100Ah Battle Born lithium batteries aboard Blake! We literally doubled our battery capacity with this install, and will hopefully never hear that awful low battery alarm ever again. The team at Battle Born helped us navigate this retrofit by offering their time on the phone to go over the details of our current alternator system to ensure we ordered the correct unit to enable charging to the new lithium bank. We ordered a WakeSpeed WS500. We can't wait to test out the new system this summer while we cruise the Bahamas!
You can have as much solar as possible and still not have a complete system if you do not have a sufficient, and reliable battery bank to store your solar energy during the day while it's being generated. Another reason we really want to be able to offer our customers a battery option is because there is now verbiage in the Federal Solar Investment Tax Credit that gives provisions for the cost of a "three kilowatt-hour minimum" battery storage system which equates to anything over 250AmpHrs at 12Volts. This is HUGE! You are now eligible on all US Flagged vessels to get a 30% Federal tax credit on a battery bank when you go solar! As the cost of Lithium is much greater than standard lead-acid or AGM, we wanted to make sure our customers know about this.