Why Lithium?

If badly designed, lithium batteries, like all batteries, can be dangerous. However, we design all of our batteries to be safe and secure. All of our Arctic batteries have a Battery Management System (BMS) installed, which guards against danger. Our lithium batteries include an external short circuit, which lead batteries lack.

Additionally, in the unlikely event the cells themselves were shorted, externally pierced or crushed, the cells would not achieve a high enough temperature to combust, and any gases given off during this process would be inert. A high enough temperature could not be achieved if the cells were electrically damaged, for example by overvoltage charging, or charging at a low temperature (below freezing).

Our Battery Management System prevents low temperature charging or high voltage charging. On balance, lead batteries would normally be more dangerous since gases given off in fault conditions are explosive and there is no internal short circuit protection or BMS equivalent to protect them.

Our lithium batteries switch off in the case of overcharging or undercharge conditions, or attempted charge at low temperature. However, our ‘Artic’ range features an auto-switch which powers heat pads that allow safe operation in freezing conditions.

Lithium batteries can be seriously damaged if they are charged below 0°C. All our batteries are protected by a BMS. Our Artic batteries have a temperature control that activates heating elements when charging commences to overcome this problem.

Lithium batteries charge eight times faster than other batteries, and so draw down a high charge, this can damage the batteries alternator. However, we have equipped our batteries with external circuitry to prevent overload demand.

This is incorrect. A lithium battery delivers its power at a constant voltage for far longer and supplies power to near zero capacity before its voltage significantly tails off. This means they deliver nearly 100% of their stored energy as usable energy.

By contrast a lead batteries voltage tails of as it discharges, passing the half way mark certain items such as water pumps start to become notably sluggish or lights dimmer. This is clearly impractical and a recharge becomes a pressing issue for its user.

Moreover, lead batteries begin to suffer increasing lifetime degradation around 50% of discharge and it is in the user’s interest to manage a lead battery so that the duration elapsed after this level is kept to a minimum. Lastly, when a lead battery is subjected to large current demand, such as an inverter, it suffers from a natural phenomenon called the Peukert’s Effect and the stated capacity drops by a very significant factor.

For these reasons it appears lithium has gained a reputation for a single battery having the power of two lead ones. Peukert’s Law describes how lead acid battery capacity is affected by the rate at which the battery is discharged. As the discharge rate increases, the battery’s usable capacity decreases. However, this law does not hold true for lithium-ion batteries due to the technology’s high level of efficiency.