Skip to content
WattCurious

Topic

Batteries & Storage

What actually moves inside a cell as it charges, why usable capacity is smaller than the nameplate, and which habits shorten or extend a battery's life.

Storage is where renewable energy stops being a question of weather and becomes a question of timing. This section starts inside the cell — lithium ions shuttling between electrodes, and the slow side reactions that consume them — and builds up to whole systems that carry energy from the hours it is produced to the hours it is needed.

The guides answer the questions that decide how long a battery bank lasts and how much of it you can actually use: what depth of discharge means and why deep cycles cost more than their share; how LFP, NMC and lead-acid chemistries age differently; why cold takes capacity away temporarily while heat removes it for good, and why charging below freezing is the real hazard; and what a battery management system measures, balances and protects against.

Storage is not only chemical. The section also explains what happens to surplus solar power once the battery is full, and how pumped hydro stores energy as water lifted uphill. As everywhere on the site, it is physics and engineering only: no prices, products or brands.