LITHIUM BATTERIES

Recently we removed (4) 8D 260 Amp hour 12 volt batteries and replaced them with (3) 200 Amp hour 25.6 volt Victron lithium ion smart batteries. Lithium technology has come a long way in the marine industry. ABYC recently wrote the first set of standards for lithium batteries installed on a boat which has opened the door for allot of interested boaters. There are many advantages when running a lithium battery bank over an AGM/lead acid bank which you can read more of in our services page, but one of the most notable advantages is usable amp hours. With lead acid you should never use more than 50% of your total battery capacity before you need to recharge your batteries back to 100%. Whether that means running a generator, running the boat and charging via alternators, or heading back to the dock and plugging back into shore power. With lithium you can use up to 95% of the battery’s capacity before needing to recharge. Furthermore, you do not have to recharge back up to 100% before beginning to discharge again. This means you could charge back up to 50% and start discharging again without harming to the batteries, the list of benefits goes on and on.

With this project the electrical system was 24V and had an inverter bank with (4) 8D 260 Amp 12V batteries wired in series parallel, weighing 180 pounds each (720 pounds). Giving the inverter bank 520 usable amp hours which on this boat was good for about 5 hours of off grid power before needing to recharge. And then you were charging with a charge rate of 70 Amps that would take between 7-8 hours.

When we designed this system we wanted to give the customer a very manageable and efficient system that would give them more time on anchor and less time needing to recharge. We replaced the 720 pound AGM batteries with three Victron lithium ion 200 amp 25.6 volt smart batteries weighing 123 pounds each, losing 351 pounds and taking a smaller footprint. We only gained 80 Amps but it is important to remember you can use 95% of these batteries capacity. In addition to the usable amp hours these batteries can be charged at a much higher amperage and absorb this charge at a faster rate. To support the batteries we added a Victron Multiplus 5000 inverter charger and two Wakespeed Alternator regulators giving us over 300 amps of charge current when underway, which enables this boat to recharge from 0%-100% in two hours. To control and protect all of the equipment we are using a Victron Color Control GX networked with a Victron battery management system, Victron battery protect, Victron battery monitor that is Bluetooth enabled, and a generator auto start. We are very excited about the overall results that were achieved using these lithium batteries and believe this will be a big game changer for boaters that enjoy spending more time on anchor and less time running the generator.