APC by Schneider Electric has announced launch of a smart charging
and remote battery management for stationary batteries in
datacenters and facilities. According to the company, the battery
management system is a comprehensive approach that will not only
perform the usual monitoring tasks but will also mitigate the potential
for problems caused by under and over charging of batteries. It
will improve availability by ensuring batteries are optimally charged
and ready for use.
The APC battery management system monitors 2-, 4-, 8-, or 12V
VRLA or wet cell or 1.2 or 2.4V Nickel-Cadmium batteries in use in
data center, facility, and industrial applications.
The system consists of a processor running custom firmware controlling
selector circuits, a voltage monitor, a current monitor and an
isolated current source. The manager connects to the battery via a
battery selector and reads the voltage of the battery. After completing
a reading cycle, the manager then determines which, if any, batteries
need boosting, sequentially connects the isolated charger to those
individual batteries requiring boosting, and applies a boost current to
only those batteries requiring it. During the response test, the battery
manager uses the battery selectors to connect the isolated charger to
each battery in the string. After the response test is finished, the individual
current characteristics of each battery are compared to an
automatically stored baseline, and batteries that show excessive
deviation from the baseline are flagged as needing attention.
The individual battery charging feature is an APC exclusive. It is
equivalent to
having a charger for each cell that provides exactly the
right amount of charge for exactly the right amount of time.
The individual battery charging feature prevents charge related
problems, such as over & under charging and thermal runaway from
developing. The ability to observe the system in operation, acknowledge
alarms, download data and upload software makes the system
reachable by remote experts or for routine data visits and permits
individual replacements.
In a release, G.B. Ravichandra, Director-Enterprise Business, APC
stated that APC's intelligent Battery Management System adds life to
your batteries, lowers cost of ownership by identifying and helping
replace only the faulty battery instead of the whole string. All of APC by
Schneider Electric solutions are based on such intelligent technology
innovations which help reduce wastage of energy, money and real estate
space. This sort of customer-centric approach aligns us to our client's
main criteria of significant cost savings while maintaining business
resiliency, security, uptime and 24x7 high availability, he asserted.