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Comment by 2Gkashmiri | Hacker News Reader

Can someone in India recommend me a cost comparative to lead acid batteries for home use?

I want a 5-10-15kwh pack but a 5kwh lead acid would cost inr 80-90k while lithium would be double.

Sure lithium has more life but warranty wise every seller only says 3-5 years. Same as lead acid so why bother with more expensive?

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I don't know about availability in India but lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries have come down in price a lot lately and they last about 7000 cycles (15 Years at 80% DoD): https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-48...

warranty 5 years on this one. theoretically even if breaks 1 day more than 5 years, there is no recourse so why assume it will last 15? tesla offers 10 years warranty on their powerwall so they are confident it will work at least for 10 years.

> lithium has more life but warranty wise every seller only says 3-5 years

Anyone know why this is?

After about 600 0-100-0 cycles a lithium battery will be down to about 80% capacity, which is enough to trigger a warranty claim. And 600 cycles once a day is only 2 years. Also using the battery at an extremely hot or extremely cold temperature will also reduce its lifetime.

OTOH, if you keep that battery between 20-80% and only use it at indoor temps, you can probably cycle it daily for 20 years.

Why the divergence between India and other countries, where 10 years is the norm [1]? (Climate makes sense.)

[1] https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/powerwall/Pow...

Climate can be addressed with proper battery management.

For instance, nissan leaf batteries used to die after a few years (I think they fixed this in recent years), but battery failures for other cars of similar age are unheard of.

I wonder if the batteries in India are being produced domestically, and the manufacturers are trying to catch up.

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