Energy Unlimited and Wiring Unlimited have been indispensable educational and reference tools. Energy Unlimited was last updated in 2011 and is almost exclusively written in the context of lead acid batteries. With the advent and ubiquity of LiFePO4 batteries it would be a great advantage to have a similarly technical publication based on this newer technology. Is this possibly already in the works?
I completely agree with this. Over the past few months, I have read through these documents quite thoroughly, and I recognise what is described above.
As an example, I can mention the enormous short-circuit current capacity of LFP batteries and the (un)suitability of many fuses and circuit breakers. It is tempting to use Chinese circuit breakers, but these rarely have a genuine CE declaration, and you do not know what you are letting yourself in for. I have come across products of this kind more than once with self-declared CE marking, and that is not appropriate for this type of product. These are standard products that should be assessed by an independent body. European manufacturers (Schneider, ABB, Siemens) offer only a limited range of DC circuit breakers, and they are considerably more expensive.
You encounter this issue particularly when building a serious ESS system. I therefore opt for EF3 fuses: tested and not overly expensive.
But that is just one example. Especially in view of the increase in ESS systems, I think an update to this documentation would be desirable and extremely useful.
Thank you for joining this discussion. You make some good points here.
Hi @TherealKT & @Rene71
Appreciate the feedback, I’ve forwarded it on to the authors.