In-depth understanding of common 100ah lithium batteries

A 100ah lithium battery is so popular due to its broad range of applications which can be seen in RVs, inverters, golf carts, electric motorcycles, and many more. This popularity has led to most users asking questions about the battery capacity and compatibility with home appliances and other applications.

But before we understand what makes a 100ah lithium battery is a great option for our home use, we need to understand some basic terms before we proceed.

What is an amp hour

When picking out a battery, it is important to note the amount of current the battery pack can give off and this is where Amp-hour(ah) comes in.

Ampere(Amps) is the unit used in measuring electrical current which is the speed at which electricity flows through a conductor. The (ah) in 100ah lithium battery describes the capacity of the battery in terms of current speed for a specific time, in this case, 100 amps per hour.

What is the capacity of a 100ah lithium battery

As we’ve established, Amp-hour (ah) denotes the capacity of a battery to release a certain amperage per hour .

This simply means that each battery pack should have a specified amp-hour rating attached to it and in this case, we have a 100ah lithium battery pack which equals 100 amps per hour.

With this, it can be said that a 100ah lithium battery can supply a current of 50 amps for 2 hours. This is because while a 100ah lithium battery can supply 100 amps for one hour, it doesn’t mean it can only last for one hour but can as well last for much longer if the amp load is reduced accordingly.

Alternatively, the same battery can that can release 100 amps an hour can also release 10 amps for 10 hours and 5 amps for 20 hours, and so on.

What does 12 volt mean in a 100ah lithium battery

It’s common for most batteries to come in either 6v, 8v, or 12v sizes and in this case, 100ah lithium battery still has a 100ah capacity.

A battery’s voltage is the electrical pressure required to transmit electrical current from a power source through a conductor.

In this case, 12v in a 100ah lithium battery denotes that the battery transmits 12 volts under normal conditions. The multiplication of both values will denote the total watt capacity of the battery.

In essence, a 12v 100ah battery will give 100 amps × 12V = 1200 watts for one hour.  12-volt batteries are the most common battery voltage types as most RVs, inverters, golf carts and electric vehicles are built to run on this battery type.

What is the difference between wh and ah

A battery’s total capacity is an aggregation of different factors and while we’ve established the concept of amp-hour as the rate of a battery to supply 1 amp of electrical current for 1 hour, there are other concepts to consider as well.

Watt-hour is another battery-related concept and people sometimes get it mixed up with amp-hour but they couldn’t be more different from each other.

Amp-hour can be converted to watts-hour using a simple multiplication factor which can be done by multiplying the amps-hours(ah) by the battery’s voltage(V) and the resulting answer produces the watts-hour(Wh).

For example, a 12V 100ah lithium battery provides 100 amps for 1 hour and can be multiplied as such, 12V × 100ah = 1200 watts hours. This can also be read as the battery being able to supply 1200 watts for 1 hour.

What can a 100ah lithium battery run

Lithium batteries are a reliable source of energy and overall performance as they can power a wide range of devices and electrical appliances.

A 100ah lithium battery can be used as a lithium ion solar battery with inverters as well as a battery pack for powering electric vehicles.

But understanding what a battery pack can actually run can be easily calculated using the basic electrical information from the battery including the voltage and current.

Using the previous calculations, we understand that a 12V 100ah lithium battery will give off 1200 watts of electrical current per hour.

Alternatively, the same battery that powers a 1200W appliance for an hour can also power a 300W appliance for 4 hours.

Furthermore, we can also denote that a 100ah battery can run a mixture of appliances below 1200W for a least 1 hour.

As seen, it all depends on the energy requirements of the appliances you intend to run and the battery will supply energy accordingly.

Will a 100ah lithium battery power a house

As we’ve stated earlier, the capacity of a battery to power any appliance or combination of appliances in a home depends a lot on the battery size and the energy requirements of those appliances.

Whatever appliances a home would have should not be more than the maximum energy output of the battery that supplies the current.

In the case of a 12V 100ah lithium ion battery, the home’s electrical requirements might be too much for a single battery pack to handle. Most 100ah lithium batteries are strong enough to power home appliances but the real question is, for how long?

If your home has a 200W watts television, 2 LED bulbs of 50W, and a few other appliances that amount to about 600W of home appliances, then a 18v 100ah lithium battery should be able to power these home appliances for approximately 2 hours.

The scale can be adjusted to accommodate any number of appliances but time will be the deciding factor as to how long and how well the power will be supplied.

What is the run time of a 100ah battery

A battery’s total runtime is not just a factor of its voltage and current capacity but iI also dependent on the amount of power it is required to release consistently for a period of time.

The same can be said for a 100ah battery that has a capacity of 100 amps that can be supplied over a period of time depending on the capacity of the appliances it is meant to power.

Let’s take, for example, a television requires 10 amps of electricity, with a 100ah battery you could power your television for roughly 10 hours.

You can continue this application for a variety of appliances by splitting the power requirements with battery’s capacity and that should give you the battery’s runtime.

If your appliances require electrical currents exceeding 1200 watts then you may need to get a battery with a bigger capacity or another 100ah lithium battery to provide the extra power needed.

What is the charge time of a 100ah lithium battery

Charging a 100ah lithium battery or any battery depends on the type of battery being used, its discharge rate, and energy density.

In this case, lithium batteries have a very low discharge rate and have a relatively fast recharge rate due to low resistance in the lithium cells compared to other battery types.

Using a 50 amp charger, a 100ah lithium battery can be completely charged from 0% to 100% in roughly 2 hours. Using a 10 amp charger, it would alternatively take a 100ah battery up to 10 hours to be fully charged.

However, the charging of lithium-ion batteries will actually go through a constant voltage process, so the actual time needs to be multiplied by a factor of 1.1~1.5, which is the charging time.

How long does it take to charge a 100ah battery using solar panels

Using solar panels in charging a battery is the go-to option for some battery users as charging directly from the public power grid can compound electricity bills.

Charging any battery type using solar panels irrespective of its capacity will be a factor of the power output of the solar panels being used.

Assuming you have a 100ah battery that is at 30% capacity which is now at 30ah, use a 100W solar panel with an output of 10 amps. Using these figures we can easily estimate how long the battery would take to recharge, which would be 70ah ÷ 10 amps = 7 hours.

With these calculations, we can easily deduce that to completely charge a 100ah battery discharged to 20% using a 10 amp solar panel, will take about 8 hours.

This 4 hours time frame is an estimate and the actual charge time would depend on the total amount of peak sunlight hours the solar panels receive during the day, we’ll discuss more on that later in the article.

How much is a 100 amp lithium-ion battery

There are many factors that affect the price, such as different voltage specifications and different manufacturers, a 100ah lithium battery can cost from as low as $200 to as much as $700.

What is the runtime of 100w or 50w appliances using a 100ah lithium battery

When getting a new battery most people would want to know just how long a battery will last and they would specifically be interested in how many hours of power the battery can supply.

This would take into consideration the load range and current requirements of the appliances which the battery is meant to power.

As earlier stated, we understand that a 12V 100ah lithium battery will provide up to 1200 watts of power an hour.

Knowing the capacity of the battery we can simply work out how long it would power an appliance provided we also know the capacity of the appliance in question.

For an appliance that requires 100W of power, we get the run time of the battery by simply dividing 1200W by 100W which would give us 12.

This simply tells us that a 12v 100ah battery has the capacity to run a 100W device for roughly 12 hours before needing to be charged.

Alternatively, for 50W appliances, we use the same calculations, 1200W ÷ 50W = 24. This gives a 50W device about 24 hours of runtime using a 100ah lithium battery.

How many solar panels are needed to charge a 100ah battery

Understanding that the charge rate of a 100ah lithium battery using Solar panels is dependent on the output of the solar panels and the amount of peak sunlight hours received during the day.

If a solar panel rated at 100W will take 6 hours to charge a battery discharged to 50% then we can safely assume that 2 solar panels will do the same in half the time of 3 hours.

In essence, increasing the number of solar panels will effectively reduce the charge time of the battery and get the fastest charge time of a 100ah lithium battery.

How powerful does a solar panel need to be to charge a 100ah battery

In rating a solar panel, the amount of power it can generate is dependent on the amount of sunlight it receives.

A solar panel’s power output is partly dependent on its capacity and total surface area but it is also greatly dependent on the number of peak sunlight hours it gets during the day.

For instance, if a 50W solar panel receives a total of 6 hours of peak sunlight, we can multiply both figures giving us a power rating of 60-watt hours.