Are lead-acid batteries a good choice for energy storage?

Lead–acid batteries have been used for energy storage in utility applications for many years but it has only been in recent years that the demand for battery energy storage has increased.

What is a lead acid battery?

Lead–acid batteries may be flooded or sealed valve-regulated (VRLA) types and the grids may be in the form of flat pasted plates or tubular plates. The various constructions have different technical performance and can be adapted to particular duty cycles. Batteries with tubular plates offer long deep cycle lives.

What is the heat capacity of flooded lead acid batteries?

Battery-specific heat capacity of flooded lead acid batteries was reported through literature to be slightly over 1000 J/kg-K and thus this value was selected as a reasonable approximation [ 83 ]. Inlet air flowrate was set at 400 cfm which could be easily achieved through an 8′′ duct fan.

What is a good heat capacity for sealed lead-acid batteries?

Acceptable values for specific heat capacity for sealed lead-acid batteries range between 0.7 and 0.9 kJ/kg-K and value of 0.8 was selected to represent the average of this interval [ 83, 84 ]. For the heat generation variable, a volumetric-based heat model was used.

Are lead batteries sustainable?

Improvements to lead battery technology have increased cycle life both in deep and shallow cycle applications. Li-ion and other battery types used for energy storage will be discussed to show that lead batteries are technically and economically effective. The sustainability of lead batteries is superior to other battery types.

Can lead batteries be recycled?

A selection of larger lead battery energy storage installations are analysed and lessons learned identied. Lead is the most efcientlyrecycled commodity fi fi metal and lead batteries are the only battery energy storage system that is almost completely recycled, with over 99% of lead batteries being collected and recycled in Europe and USA.