Information About

Ampere-hour




However, in reality, the available capacity of a battery depends on the rate at which it is discharged. If a battery is discharged at a relatively high rate, the available capacity will be lower than expected. Therefore, a battery rated at 100 Ah will deliver 20 A over 5 hours, but if it is instead discharged at 50 A (coulombs per second), it will run out of charge before the theoretically expected 2 hours. For this reason, a battery capacity rating is always related to an expected discharge time, which is typically 5 or 20 hours.

The relationship between current, discharge time and capacity is expressed by Peukert's Law .

In general, the higher the ampere-hour rating, the longer the battery will last for a certain device. Installing batteries with different Ah ratings will not affect the operation of a device rated for a specific voltage.

The Ah rating of a battery is related to, but not the same as, the amount of Energy it stores when fully charged. If two batteries have the same nominal Voltage , then the one with the higher Ah rating stores more energy. It would also typically take longer to recharge.

The energy ''E'' available from a battery is approximately given by
  • expressed in Joule s: E=3600\ CV

  • expressed in Watt-hour s: E= CV\,

  • where

C

V

This is only an approximation though, due to the fact that the voltage during discharge is not actually constant.


OTHER UNITS

The SI unit of electric charge is the Coulomb . One ampere-hour is equal to 3600 coulombs.


SEE ALSO