Solar Lithium Batteries and Inverters, Made in India

Yes, and lithium iron phosphate in particular suits the job. A solar battery cycles every day - charged by the panels, discharged through the evening - so the number of cycles a battery can deliver matters more than almost anything else, and cycle life is where LiFePO4 is strongest. It also needs no topping up, accepts charge quickly, which matters when the sun is only up for so many hours, and carries a battery management system that protects the cells and balances them. CLN builds every battery on LiFePO4 at its plant in Noida, and the rated cycle life is stated per model on each specification page. The one real trade is size: an LFP battery is larger for the same energy than the nickel-based chemistries, which is rarely a constraint in a home or on a wall.

The one whose voltage matches the inverter's battery input, sized to the load. Voltage first: a 12V inverter takes a 12.8V lithium battery, a 24V inverter takes 25.6V, and a 48V inverter takes a 48V or 51.2V pack - the lithium numbers are slightly higher because a LiFePO4 cell is 3.2V rather than 2V. Then capacity, which is arithmetic on the load and the hours of backup you want. Last, the inverter must charge with a lithium profile or be set to one; some hybrid inverters also talk to the battery management system directly. Almost every CLN battery can sit behind a solar inverter. Send us the inverter model and the load, and we will name the battery rather than leave you to guess from a catalogue.

Usually, provided the voltage matches and the charge settings suit lithium. Most home inverters in India were installed with tubular lead-acid batteries and are set to a lead-acid charge profile. On a lithium battery that profile tends to stop short of a full charge, so part of the capacity you paid for goes unused; the battery management system in every CLN pack protects the cells, so the usual result is lost capacity rather than damage. Many inverters have a battery-type setting that fixes this; some older ones do not. The CLN table-top batteries are built to standard lead-acid form factors, so they usually fit where the old battery stood. Tell us the inverter make, model and battery voltage, and we will confirm whether it suits a 12.8V or 25.6V CLN battery as it stands, or what needs to change. The lead-acid replacement page covers the swap in detail.

No, and this is the most common surprise in rooftop solar. A grid-tie inverter feeds solar power into your home and the grid, and it uses no battery. When the grid fails it is required to shut down - anti-islanding protection, specified under IEC 62116 - so that it cannot push power onto a line that engineers may be working on. That means panels on the roof and no power in the house during an outage, even at midday. If you want power through a cut, you need a hybrid setup: an inverter that works with a battery, such as a CLN all-in-one solar unit, or a hybrid inverter paired with a CLN lithium battery. A grid-tie inverter is the right choice where the aim is to cut the electricity bill and outages are rare.

Multiply the load you want to run by the hours you want to run it, then allow for how deeply you will discharge. Say 500 watts of fans, lights and a refrigerator for four hours: that is 2 kWh. A 25.6V 100Ah battery stores 2.56 kWh nominal, and at 80% depth of discharge - the depth CLN rates its cycle life at - it delivers about 2.05 kWh, which covers it with a little margin; inverter losses eat into that margin, so round up rather than down. Use the real load, not the inverter's rating: an inverter rated 2,000 VA running 500 watts empties a battery at the 500-watt rate. For a whole home or a business, the sizing is worth doing properly - send us the load and the hours and we will size it.