Abstract
A significant amount of people in the world are without electricity service, the majority of which are located in rural areas where extending the electricity grid is not economically feasible. Off-grid solar photovoltaic technology has been identified as the most prominent option to electrify these rural areas, of which lead-acid storage batteries are a major component.The formation process of lead-acid batteries is poorly defined in the public literature as it is considered confidential by battery manufacturers. Thus, the objective of this study is to determine the lead-acid battery characteristics of amp-hour capacity, voltage, and temperature as a function of formation level using a constant-current algorithm, with the goal of identifying the optimal formation level for both conventional and off-grid solar applications.Eight cells are formed using the container formation method to a different level in order to capture a wide range of variations. For a positive plate thickness of 4.32mm, it is suggested that the formation levels for conventional and off-grid solar applications are 2.3 and 2.8times the theoretical capacity of the cell, respectively. This range overlaps, but extends beyond the range recommended in literature of 1.24–2.50times the theoretical capacity of the cell.
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