South African energy company Freedom Won has announced the release of a wall-mounted lithium-iron phosphate energy storage solution, touting it as a renewable-energy solution set to “revolutionise” battery-based energy storage for the home and business.

The FreedomCOR module, which is based on technology used previously by the company in electric vehicle energy storage, makes it possible to operate an independent renewable-energy ‘power plant’ through the use of photovoltaic (PV) panels for energy generation, the company says in a statement.

The system can be operated at an average cost per kilowatt hour of less than the typical municipal electricity charges in South Africa, with a typical cost of R1.60/kWh over the lifetime of the product.

This rate, when combined with rooftop PV, could result in an average cost of less than R1/kWh spread over a 20-year period, as the bulk of the energy is consumed during the day, when cheaper PV power can be used directly, Freedom Won cofounder Antony English explains.

“This range of energy storage modules contains a lithium-iron phosphate battery capable of over 5 000 charge-discharge cycles of useful life, which will easily serve for over 13 years of daily cycling before the cells would need to be replaced.

“This ensures a much lower total life cycle cost than any other battery products on the market,” he says.

The system can also be connected to grid-tie inverter-charger combination units that support lithium technology and can be integrated with a solar charge controller to receive power from a PV array.

The product is available in various sizes, with the domestic range offering capacity of between 5 kWh and 30 kWh, the business range offering capacity of up to 80 kWh and the industrial range available in “much larger” capacities to suit high-demand applications.

Cofounder Lizette Kriel adds that the domestic product range has a slim, wall-mounted design, while the business module is floor-mounted.

“The most popular model to date is the 10 kWh unit, because it offers sufficient energy to run the important loads in an average house for between four and five hours through a typical bout of load-shedding,” she says.