Trina Battery: An Independent Review by Solar Choice

Background on Trina – Company History

Gao Jifan started Trina Solar in 1997. Trina solar are one of the big 5 solar panel manufacturers and are based in China. Trina solar have a solid financial backing as a publicly listed company on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of around 47 billion Chinese Yen (~AUD$10bn).

Trina has experimented with solar batteries in recent years launching the an 9.6kWh ‘Power Cube’ which can be retrofitted to existing solar systems with an additional power box. However at the time of writing this review it looks like Trina has discontinued this product line as no further information is recorded on their website.

Basics of Trinabess Lithium Batteries

Powercube

If the word “Trina” seems familiar, it’s because it’s a prominent solar panel producer. Trinabess is the company’s first effort into solar battery storage. This company manufactures hybrid and retrofit battery systems for grid-connect and off-grid applications.

Trina’s product in Australia is the Power Cube, a 9.6kWh (8.64kWh) battery system with an AC battery converter dubbed “Powerbox” – however, it still needs a solar inverter as per their datasheet

Moreover, in the overwhelming majority of instances, a new-generation solar battery represents a substantial financial expenditure, even with a subsidy if you reside in an area of Australia that provides one.

Furthermore, because energy storage is a newer technology than solar panels, you should gather as much helpful information as possible during your study before making an energy storage purchasing choice.

They have a working temperature of -20 to 50 degrees Celsius which make them suitable to withstand the hot environmental extremes of Australia safely. On that point, they’re developed with lithium ion phosphate which is well known for their chemical safety with batteries, as well as providing a long cycle life.

Rated IP54 they’re designed to be used for both indoor and outdoor use which makes them versatile.

It’s only compatible with Trina’s PowerCube battery inverter only.

Trinabess Battery – Key Features

There are a number of features of the Trinabess battery worth mentioning:

Compact size

The Trinabess Powercube battery is designed to be compact and portable. The Powercube dimensions are 600mm x 530mm x 210mm (W x H x D).  So, if you have limited space in your household, this is a big plus. At 65kg, these batteries are average in weight for the market, which makes them easy to install and move if required. It has easy installation with estimated setup time of 2 hours. 

Flexible Use:

Designed to be retrofitted to existing solar panel installations. This makes it very versatile for those who want to initially start with a grid based solar system with the option to expand in the future to a hybrid system to meet their energy requirements.

Scalable Capacity

As we’ve mentioned, these batteries can be connected in parallel in order to scale the nominal capacity of your storage system. The advantage with this, is that it gives you the flexibility to expand your solar energy storage in the future. This may be useful if you’re finding that you’re finding your battery stretched with your night time use of appliances. It’s not clear from their documentation the maximum modules that can be connected, so we’ve reached out to Trinabess.

Outdoor rated IP54 for PowerCube

This enables you to have to option to install the unit outside your house which is handy if you have limited space. Especially useful if you want to scale the units in parallel for expanded storage capacity.

How Much Do Trinabess Batteries Cost?

We’ve reached out to Trinabess to find out the wholesale cost of their batteries. We’ll update this section once we hear back from them.

Australian Warranty Terms for Trinabess Powercube Battery

The Trinabess PowerCube 2.0’s battery performance and capacity are guaranteed to meet minimum energy throughput and capacity requirements or for a term of ten years, whichever comes first. Battery capacity depletes over time due to the Normal Degradation of Lithium-Ion battery cells, covered by this Limited Warranty and quantified by the statements below. The following conditions apply to this Limited Warranty:

• Discharge current not exceeding the nameplate capacity divided by 0.048 x 0.5Amps.
• The battery is never discharged below 90% of its remaining capacity, operating outside the ambient temperature range (does not exceed 0ºC and 40ºC)
• It cannot be installed at a location that will be exposed to a temperature of more than 50ºC
• Being established and operating in conjunction with a suitable inverter that can interface with and be controlled by the PowerCube 2.0’s Battery Management System

The warranty documentation isn’t clear who you can make a claim for and there’s no information on authorised Australian distributors. But you may try contacting Trina directly:

Trina Energy Storage Solutions (Jiangsu) Co.,Ltd.
Address: No. 2 Tianhe Road, Trina PV Industrial Park, New District, Changzhou, Jiangsu, China 213031
website: www.trinaenergystorage.com
Tel：(+86)0519-85176686

Review Trina’s warranty document here.

Powercube Specifications

Read About Home Battery Government Schemes Across Australia

South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, and Australian Capital Territory all currently have a home battery scheme in place.

The South Australian Home Battery Scheme enables eligible South Australian residents to receive up to $4,000 per installed battery.

The New South Wales Home Battery Scheme offers an interest-free loan up to $9000 for eligible households looking to install a solar battery.

The Victorian Government under the Solar Homes Program provides to those eligible, a maximum discount of $4,174 off the battery sale price. The next release of battery rebates is on the 2^nd of September 2020.

The Australian Capital Territory Government under the Next Generation Energy Storage program provides a rebate of $825 per kilowatt (kW). An average household with a 5kW system would be eligible for approximately $4,000.

Read more product reviews from Solar Choice

• About
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Jeff Sykes

CEO at Solar Choice

Jeff has consulted on over 20MW of commercial solar projects, ranging from SMEs to ASX top 100 companies. Jeff has also provided independent advice to 100s of residential solar, battery and EV charging customers across every state in Australia. He holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management and is an expert in business strategy and financial analysis.

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