Batteries and Solar

Batteries

Off The Shelf

• Portable Mini UPS Battery Backup and PoE - an easy to carry PoE and battery combo for testing nodes in the field

Just Batteries

• Bioenno Power - LiFePO4 batteries which are lightweight but support many more charging cycles compared to normal lithium batteries.

Solar

Off The Shelf

• Jackery offer a range of all-in-one portable battery and charging packs. Can be used with optional solar panels.
• Ubiquiti provide solar charges specifically designed for use with their PoE Wifi products. Batteries and solar are bought separately.

Uninterrupted Self Sustaining Solar Power

USSP

Solar Load Estimates

Estimates of what it would take to achieve a year-round solar autonomy, for different continuous loads. The model assumes "typical" SF weather conditions (Link to model).

Note

A good portion of the capacity is just to meet the worst few days of the year, so if you are willing to sacrifice those, the system can be quite a bit smaller and still get you 95%+ annual up time.

Estimates

Below all assume 26V LiFePO4 battery (using 80% of capacity), somewhat conservative, but not a lot of margin:

• 7W (cont.): 18A-h battery, 90W solar, 5A charge controller
• 10W (cont.): 25A-h battery, 125W solar, 5A charge controller
• 15W (cont.): 38A-h battery, 190W solar, 10A charge controller
• 20W (cont.): 50A-h battery, 250W solar, 10A charge controller
• 40W (cont.): 100A-h battery, 500W solar, 20A charge controller
• 50W (cont.): 125A-h battery, 625W solar, 25A charge controller
• 60W (cont.): 150A-h battery, 750W solar, 30A charge controller