BU-402: What Is C-rate?

Observe

how

the

charge

and

discharge

rates

are

scaled

and

why

it

matters.

Charge and discharge rates of a battery are governed by C-rates. The capacity of a battery is commonly
rated at 1C, meaning that a fully charged battery rated at 1Ah should provide 1A for one hour. The same
battery discharging at 0.5C should provide 500mA for two hours, and at 2C it delivers 2A for 30 minutes.
Losses at fast discharges reduce the discharge time and these losses also affect charge times.

A C-rate of 1C is also known as a one-hour discharge; 0.5C or C/2 is a two-hour discharge and 0.2C or C/5
is a 5-hour discharge. Some high-performance batteries can be charged and discharged above 1C with
moderate

stress.

Table

illustrates

typical

times

at

various

C-rates.

Table 1: C-rate and service times when

The battery capacity, or the amount of energy a

charging

battery can hold, can be measured with a battery

and

discharging

batteries.

analyzer. (See BU-909: Battery Test Equipment.)

The analyzer discharges the battery at a calibrated

C-rate

Time

5C

12 min

2C

30 min

of-discharge is typically 1.75V/cell, for NiCd/NiMH

1C

1h

1.0V/cell and for Li-ion 3.0V/cell. If a 1Ah battery

0.5C or C/2

2h

provides 1A for one hour, an analyzer displaying the

0.2C or C/5

5h

0.1C or C/10

10h

0.05C or C/20

20h

current while measuring the time until the end-ofdischarge voltage is reached. For lead acid, the end-

results in percentage of the nominal rating will show

100 percent. If the discharge lasts 30 minutes before
reaching the end-of-discharge cut-off voltage, then
the battery has a capacity of 50 percent. A new
battery is sometimes overrated and can produce

more than 100 percent capacity; others are underrated and never reach 100 percent, even after priming.

When discharging a battery with a battery analyzer capable of applying different C rates, a higher C rate
will produce a lower capacity reading and vice versa. By discharging the 1Ah battery at the faster 2C-rate,
or 2A, the battery should ideally deliver the full capacity in 30 minutes. The sum should be the same since
the identical amount of energy is dispensed over a shorter time. In reality, internal losses turn some of the
energy into heat and lower the resulting capacity to about 95 percent or less. Discharging the same battery
at 0.5C, or 500mA over 2 hours, will likely increase the capacity to above 100 percent.

To obtain a reasonably good capacity reading, manufacturers commonly rate alkaline and lead acid

batteries at a very low 0.05C, or a 20-hour discharge. Even at this slow discharge rate, lead acid seldom
attains a 100 percent capacity as the batteries are overrated. Manufacturers provide capacity offsets to
adjust for the discrepancies if discharged at a higher C rate than specified. (See also BU-503: How to
Calculate Battery Runtime.) Figure 2 illustrates the discharge times of a lead acid battery at various loads
expressed in C-rate.

Figure

2:

Typical

discharge

curves

of

lead

acid

as

function

of

C-rate.

Smaller batteries are rated at a 1C discharge rate. Due to sluggish behavior, lead acid is rated at 0.2C (5h)
and 0.05C (20h).

While lead- and nickel-based batteries can be discharged at a high rate, the protection circuit prevents the
Li-ion Energy Cell from discharging above 1C. The Power Cell with nickel, manganese and/or phosphate
active material can tolerate discharge rates of up to 10C and the current threshold is set higher accordingly.