LiFePo4 pricing vs AGM

[tanuki.himself]

What are peoples' thoughts on buying into LiFePo4 batteries at the current price point, or are they likely to drop in price in the next year or so to the extent it would be worth buying an AGM now and upgrading in a year or two? for reference amazon UK is listing 100ah batteries at GBP160 for AGM vs GBP700 for lithium....

 

[DaveInDenver]

If you could know something would drop in price and by how much you should probably be investing in the stock market rather than worrying about batteries.

My guess is that they should continue to drop in price, most things in technology do. That's the usual assumption because R&D is recovered, economies of scale start to kick in. This happens despite monetary inflation even. Lithium battery costs has been declining since the 1970s.



However with the anticipated rapid adoption of EVs and the demand for batteries generally I'm not sure they actually will drop rapidly for a while, if ever. There's a slowly growing resource supply for lithium newly mined (and starting a new mine in today's regulatory world isn't getting any easier even in third world countries) and upside for future recycling growth compared to lead but demand is really just starting to ramp up. Lithium batteries so far in the market have by volume been relatively small - phones and laptops - compared to vehicles.

So probably we're on the flattening part of the price curve. But depends on who you ask ultimately. So waiting a year might not yield much better prices.

 

[luthj]

Its not an apples to apples comparison. Lithium packs can be lower total AH than lead due to various inherent advantages. They last MUCH longer when properly installed, especially in real world daily cycling conditions. So you need to do a value calculation. Are you going to get the cost per cycle to make the investment worthwhile? Does the install conditions lend themselves to lithium longevity?

For many light usage means the batteries will age out before they cycle out, so lithium doesn't make much sense. But for daily and deep discharge usage, lithium batteries can offer 10x more cycles, sometimes well beyond that. In some applications which are abusive to lead, they will only last 100-200 cycles, where a lithium pack will be going strong at 2000+ cycles.

 

[john61ct]

The LFP prismatics we buy for House banks are 0.0001% of the world market for "lithium" batteries in general, including the little cylindricals, EV packs, little gadget pouch style etc.

I would bet a lot of money on LFP prismatics **not** dropping much in the next 5-10 years.

 

[luthj]

Cylindrical cells are cheaper to make due to production volume. They will continue to drop in price over the next 5 years or so. The same production lines/equipment that make the Lithium Cobalt cylindrical cells can easily be re purposed to make LFP variants. As the drop-ins continue to improve, they will replace lead for many applications (not all, but many). With greater production volume comes lower costs and better reliability. Most of the drop-ins use machine assembled packs of cylindricals.

 

[john61ct]

Pretty sure internal to the drop-ins are the flat pouch cells

 

[luthj]

I am sure some do. my money is on the cylindricals long term though.

Here is at least one using cylindrical cells.

 

[john61ct]

All larger packs using cylindricals are LI chemistries other than LFP, not safe for mobile House bank usage.

Pouch style and prismatics are often considered synonymous.

You get much higher energy density that way.

I don't even know of any quality maker of small sized LFP cylindricals since A123 stopped.

Pretty sure all their prismatic EV batteries are based on pouches.

 

[shade]

What are peoples' thoughts on buying into LiFePo4 batteries at the current price point, or are they likely to drop in price in the next year or so to the extent it would be worth buying an AGM now and upgrading in a year or two? for reference amazon UK is listing 100ah batteries at GBP160 for AGM vs GBP700 for lithium....

I'd hope that if you decide to use AGM batteries that you can take care of them well enough to get more than two years of life out of them. Even then, unless you really need AGM, SLA batteries may work just fine at a lower cost.

Fwiw, the best deal I found on a major brand of LFP battery is the 12V, 160Ah model from Victron Energy. I've heard that they may be in the process of discontinuing that size, which may explain why it's cheaper than the 150Ah model, at least in the U.S.

 

[luthj]

For most applications a good value flooded (sealed or not) is hard to beat for light usage. When you get into the full timer/daily cycling category, that's where the LFP packs get a major edge.

 

[tanuki.himself]

Thanks all

i will definitely be going LiFePo4 in about a year's time when the camper is actually built for lots of the reasons pointed out - cycles, weight, useable capacity and flexibility as to where it can be mounted. But for the next 9 months while I am building out and then doing short test trips i won't need more than a test/single night capability, hence the question on whether to delay. I'm on a shopping trip next week to pick up a load of bits for my build so trying to decide whether to just get a cheap AGM as a temporary fit, or just go straight for the real thing.

the market for LiFePo4 in the UK/europe seems to be way behind the US, probably due to lower demand for off grid travel. Victron are available from a couple of retailers but still very expensive, and a couple of other makes look like they have come onto the market more recently (TN Power, Ultramax) which are cheaper but with fewer reviews.

 

[john61ct]

Need to be more specific than just chemistry and location.

What I thought you are talking about was just the bare cells.

With a fully turnkey packaged system like Victron or Lithionics, those will of course be **much** more expensive than the bare cells, which are just one component compared to all the value added infrastructure.

As opposed to user purchased (likely direct from China) bare LFP cells + DIY protective circuitry; the total cost is **very** variable, depends a lot on the owner's knowledge, but should always be cheaper than the proprietary packaged systems.

Technology enabling higher reliability at lower cost of the latter category, will IMO indeed bring down pricing of the former one, **a lot** over the next 5-10 years.

Then you have the third market niche, the very-limited, unknown cell quality "drop-ins" concept, which personally I would avoid entirely, unless they are priced not much higher per Ah than quality AGM.

In the US market FLA will always be very hard to beat for value, when quality deep cycling GCs that can last 6-8 years are available for $1/Ah.

 

[dtm67]

If in europe, try marine suppliers for components as well. I was able to get 25 percent off victron list price with free shipping (in country) and paperwork to reclaim taxes paid on export from EU


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