A Leisure battery is something I just recently heard of. It has pretty much the exact same look a standard automotive battery, and it's 12 volt, just like a car battery. The difference is that car batteries give a very high current of 200 amps of power in a small amount of time. This obviously is to start your engine. A car battery has a shallow cycle of discharge and charge and is specifically designed for that capacity.  A leisure battery is the opposite.

The leisure battery is designed to give out a much lower current over a longer period of time. This allows it to run multiple systems at once without danger of depleting its charge. Lights, water pumps, televisions, laptops... all can be safely operated from a single leisure battery. Recharging a leisure battery is just like recharging a car battery. Or it can be recharged from a battery charger at home. The battery has the ability to constantly discharge and recharge to a greater degree compared to the vehicle battery during its normal life. This is known as deep cycling.

The reason why I'm writing an entire article on leisure batteries is becaues I've become very intrigued recently by the idea of alternative energy sources and was thinking about how solar power could be integrated into a battery like this which is specifically designed to run applications. I also have recently been giving a lot of thought about using portable solar energy in the third world. One time, while living in southeast Asia, I came to a countryside village where all the lights of their meeting hall were being run from a single car battery. They said they only had meetings about once per week, and only went into town to charge their battery when absolutely necessary.

This kind of application seems perfect, when combined with a small, portable solar panel, even when combined with a solar backpack. How could would it be to go on a backpacking trip into the wild, and even be able to charge a battery that would power all your electronic needs wherever you might happen to be. Or maybe a trek to a log cabin hideaway, far off the grid? Using a small, portable solar strip in conjunction with a leisure battery could defeat the purpose of having to buy and expensive generator. And the system is completely mobile!

In the past, people have had to use expensive gas powered generators in order to power vacation homes and cabins far and away. With this system, however, not only is it perfect for application in the third world environment, it's perfect for vacation homes and log cabins. Leisure batteries use what's called deep cycling, which I intend to document in a later hub. This makes them last longer and hold their charge.  All in all, I'm very excited about the new technologies coming out in solar and battery, and am on the lookout for ways to combine energy options to get the maximum benefit for creating and using alternative energy.