Shopping for AGM batteries for your motorhome, power plant, or solar sump can be a hassle with varying voltages and amp hours and kilowatt hours.
Lifepo4 batteries are still out of reach for alot of folks, and sealed AGMs are still the way to go. Especially with a solar charge controller, AGMs are the best solution for the working class.
With all these different data types, you dont want to cheap out and you don’t want to overspend so how to translate into a real number that you can use to decide whether a battery is the right balance of cost and value?
Stated AH are always underwhelming and rarely accurate when determining value of a battery. kWh of a battery is more accurate but still less likely to be stated for a battery you can actually afford!
Actual kWh is not simply stated AH*V/1000. That’s for suckers.
Real kWH is [(AH*V)+(CCA / 7.25)/2]*V/1000 which is an average between stated and real.
Instead of going by stated values alone, get a more realistic comparison by measuring kWh per dollar.
EX. The real kWh of my system is 5.91 and I spent about 2000 on the whole deal, so DPKW is $2000/5.91KW= $338.40/kwh
The same system with this awesome lifepo4 battery https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-12v-400ah/ would be 2000-1365 (AGM w/ 3 yr warranty cost)+1997(lifepo4 shipped freight 5 yr warranty) = $2632/5.12= $514.06/kwh
Of course I would rather buy the lithium system, it’s just a higher up front cost for slightly less kwh.
Thanks for reading!