What Does 100Ah Mean on a Battery For Solar Systems in Zimbabwe?

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If you are new to the world of Solar Systems in Zimbabwe, you have probably heard someone refer to 100Ah Batteries at some point, but what is a 100Ah battery? 

Today we will be taking an in-depth look at how 100Ah batteries work and why they are popular batteries with Solar Systems in Zimbabwe. We will also share how 100Ah batteries work within a solar charging system.

What is an Amp Hour?

An amp hour, also known as an ampere hour (Ah), tells you the amount of current a battery can supply for exactly one hour. This is its capacity. In order to make sense of that though, we need to define a few key electrical terms first.

• Amps: (Short for “amperes”) a unit used to measure electrical current. Current is the speed at which electrons flow through an electrical conductor.
• Volts: A unit used to measure voltage. Voltage is the difference in electrical potential, or the number of electrons, between any two points in a closed electrical circuit.
• Watts: A unit that measures the power that is generated from amps flowing through a volt’s electromotive force. Watts are calculated by multiplying the number of amps by the number of volts.

What Does 100Ah Mean?

Ah rating of a battery indicates the battery capacity or the amount of ampere hours it can handle. A 100Ah battery means that the battery can supply a load of 100 amperes in one hour, or 50 amperes for two hours or 10 amperes for 10 hours.

How is the Flow of Electricity Similar to the Flow of Water?

An easier way to understand the terms above is to compare electricity to water flowing through a hose. In this analogy, amps represent the speed of water flowing through the hose. 

What Does 100Ah Mean on a Battery For Solar Systems in Zimbabwe?

Voltage is the hose’s water pressure and watts are the amount of water coming through the hose. Amp hours would tell you how much water will flow through the hose over the span of an hour.

How Long Will a 100Ah Battery Last?

A 100Ah battery has 100 amps of capacity at its disposal. How long it can run depends on the electrical requirements of the applications you are powering and how many of them there are. A 100Ah hour battery will supply 1 amp of current for 100 hours, 2 amps for 50 hours or 100 amps for one hour.

So, let us break that down into more concrete terms. A laptop uses about 5 amps of power. If you plan on using it for 8 hours a day, you will require 40Ah of capacity for a single day. Using a 100Ah battery, you could power your laptop for 2.5 days before the battery needs to be recharged. 

Chances are though you are probably going to be powering multiple applications in your Solar Systems simultaneously. This solar sizing worksheet will help you calculate your power needs. If you find that your needs exceed what a 100Ah battery can provide, you may need to opt for a higher capacity battery, or use more than one battery connected in parallel.

How Many Watt Hours are In an Amp Hour?

If you need to convert amp hours to watt hours, you can do this by multiplying the battery’s amp hours by the battery’s voltage.

• Using that equation, the number of watts a 24 volt 100Ah battery can provide in an hour, would be calculated like this: 100 amp hours x 24Volts = 2400 watts hours or 2400 watts for one hour.
• Using that equation, the number of watts a 48 volt 100Ah battery can provide in an hour, would be calculated like this: 100 amp hours x 48Volts =4800 watts hours or 4800 watts for one hour.

What is the Difference Between AC and DC Power?

Near the bottom of the solar sizing worksheet there is a section that states “AC amps are converted to DC by multiplying by 10.” What does that mean exactly? Your Solar Systems Battery gives off Direct Current (DC), which behaves differently from the Alternating Current (AC) that’s used in your home’s electrical system. When calculating your power needs, it’s important to take this into account, which is why the worksheet suggests converting AC amps to DC amps by multiplying them by 10. While this is not an exact conversion, it is useful for the estimation of power needs.

When powering appliances directly from your Solar Systems Battery, you will need a power inverter, which converts 12V DC power to 120V AC power. If you try charging a cell phone or powering an AC appliance using DC power, you’ll severely damage it. Batteries Plus offers a selection of power inverters online.

Using a 100Ah Battery in a Solar Charging System in Zimbabwe:

A solar power system uses a number of components working in tandem to collect, store and deliver power to your Solar System for you Home n Zimbabwe. The system’s solar panels are responsible for collecting sunlight and converting it into the DC current used to charge your Solar System’s battery.

What Size Solar Panel to Charge 100Ah Battery?

Solar panels are rated by the amount of DC power they produce under ideal sunlight conditions, which is often measured in watts. You can calculate a solar panel’s total solar output by multiplying its wattage rating by the number of hours of direct sunlight it receives per day. So, using that equation, a 100 watt solar panel receiving 5 hours of sunlight per day will have a total output of 500 watt hours (Wh).

How Long Does It Take to Charge a 100Ah Battery Using Solar Panels?

The charging time will depend on the type of battery, its state of charge, and the power output of your solar panel(s). 

What Does 100Ah Mean on a Battery For Solar Systems in Zimbabwe?

As an example though, let us say you have a 12V 100Ah lead acid battery that has been discharged to 50Ah. Using a 100W solar panel in optimal sunlight would have an output of roughly 8.33 amps. Use this equation to get a rough estimate of how long it would take to recharge: 50Ah/8.33 amps = 6 hours to recharge. Realistically, it would probably be somewhere between 6 and 7 hours since you never get the full solar charge for that length of time. Of course, you can speed this up by using multiple solar panels.

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