Solar tracker using Navy Sun data

[CAI_Support]

Equalizing battery definitely make battery last much longer. We have two large UPS, using few large truck batteries to power our servers, one does equalization automatically, one does not.  Batteries connected to the one does equalization last 5 times longer than the one does not.  When SCE cut power sometimes in the summer, UPS drained the batteries all the way to their death.  On the UPS with equalization, batteries can restore back after a month or so, at least to partial capacity. 
 
If you have a lot of solar panels, I would recommend to get Enphase microinveter.  They attached to the back of each panels with 96% efficiency. The good thing for that configuration is that if one panel gone bad, you just lost power from that one panel, not all the panels. If you installed Enphase Envoy device, you can actually watch on their web site each panel's production, identify bad panels easily.  SunnyBoy larger inverter connects all the panels in series, when there is one bad panel, it is hard to tell which one gone bad.  When install solar panels in the backyard, you might have tree shadow one panel sometimes. With Enphase microinverter, all other panels still produce in full capacity. With SunnyBoy inverter, whole array will significant reduce power output when one panel in shade.

 

[todster]

Automotive batteries are only designed for about a 20% discharge and meant to be rapidly discharged and the recharged. A starting sytem plus the ability to power vehicle for a period of time if the alternator quits. A deep cycle however is usually designed to be discharged all the way down to 20%. I've seen articles where it was claimed that every lead acid has a defined number of charge/discharge cycles. No 2 batteries however have the same number. They claim that a cycle is any discharge and charge, so if you only use 5% you wasted a whole cycle. I'm not sure I'm convinced on that. I bought a lawn tractor battery from Walmart a while back. It was cheap. I normally avoid walmart like the plague, especially for batteries. No one had any at the time except wally world. Whats surprising is that with 0 maintenance and not used over the winters, that $25 battery lasted about 7 years. I'm still scratching my head in amazement.

 

[rossw]

Equalizing battery definitely make battery last much longer.

 
Depends on the battery. VRLA AGM cells specifically should NOT be, because the gassing happens faster than the recombination process, pressure builds up and both hydrogen and oxygen are vented. End result is you lose water from the electrolyte and destroy your betteries.  SLA are even worse.

 

[CAI_Support]

Our UPS allows us to select using AGM, Marine, or regular wet batteries.  We tried them all.  We set the UPS stop working voltage to 11V, because we want our equipment up as long as possible during power loss.  We found deep cycle marine batteries does not do much better than regular wet batteries when UPS had to drain it down.  AGM batteries are a lot more expensive, but their life are not that long when we have to drain them down to 11V few times in a year -- SCE many times assumed nobody in the office during the night, so they turned off power for the whole industrial park to work on their wires. 
 
We don't own that office building, so that we can not put solar panels on top of the roof to do like Ross. However, I do install solar panels in my own backyard.  With $0.40 per Kwh, I see each $1000 investment to generate $20 worth electricity each month, of about $200-$240 a year.  I saw on youtube that people claimed with tracker, same solar panels could generate 30% more electricity.