Continu install, maintain and monitor battery systems for some of the largest and most critical data centres and server rooms throughout the island of Ireland. Years of experience and training on battery technologies has taught us what works.
Unfortunately, batteries are consumable items of your UPS system and they do fail. In our experience, a large percentage of UPS problems are due to avoidable battery issues. Protecting your system from expensive downtime is achievable since a sizable percentage (approx. 80%) of UPS failures are caused by faulty or aged batteries.
Battery Health
Batteries are vital to the functioning of the UPS. Whilst the batteries sit idle on ‘standby’ most of the time, when there is an emergency mains power problem, it is critical that the batteries actually work – ensure your stand-by batteries are actually standing by. Data centres, financial services, heavy industry, communications, and transport are all critical services that rely on continuous power and cannot afford to be left in the dark.
Batteries have a design life and this will almost certainly differ from the lifespan of your UPS system. There will be a standard design life, however this will depend on several factors including:
• Charge/discharge cycles – constant discharging of batteries will cause them to reach their end of life prematurely.
• Temperature – higher ambient temperatures may improve performance but rapidly age the battery. Continu advises that UPS batteries are housed in an ambient temperature of between 22- 25°C. Operating a UPS under these conditions will maximise the life of the battery and result in optimal performance. While a UPS will continue to operate in varying temperatures, this is likely to diminish the performance and lifespan of the battery – a general rule to bear in mind is that for every 8°C above the ambient temperature of 25°C, the life of the battery will be reduced by 50 percent.
The batteries themselves also generate heat. It is therefore important to consider the cooling system should maintain optimum battery temperatures.
Remote Monitoring your Batteries
A simple way to help monitor your battery age and battery wear is through best-in-class remote monitoring software.
The Continu team can help spot when there may be future battery issues and will provide advice and quotes for replacement batteries before problems arise.
Remote monitoring provides an efficient alternative to having an engineer physically on your site. This service uses real time monitoring of your assets. Attributes such as thermal condition, circuit breaker health and patrial discharge eliminates many of the manual inspections associated with periodic PM’s and provides Continu and your site contact with a higher level of protection. Our purpose is to empower you to make the most of your backup power assets as efficiently and sustainably as possible.
Are you confident your backup power will provide you with enough run time in the event of power problems? If you would like the Continu team to survey your organisation’s backup power needs, check your network cards, install remote monitoring software, please contact us.