NERC and FERC requirements are causing more and more utility managers to look for automated ways of ensuring compliance. In an effort to facilitate the collection of data, reporting, and reduce the man hours spent on substation battery maintenance, a growing interest has begun in Automated Battery Monitoring Systems.
Battery monitoring systems have existed in one form or another for nearly 40 years now. Each generation offers more advanced features than previous generations; however, for the most part, they are highly passive systems that collect data and virtually watch your battery system fail. True they collect data, monitor cell conditions, provide warnings and alarms, but in reality they provide no features which control or add to the service life of the battery system they are watching.
Providing more than simple battery monitoring, the new EquaLink interactive management system proactively and automatically adjusts the key parameter which controls a battery’s service life. It provides continuous proper charging and regulation of float voltage to each individual battery cell over its life.
Working in conjunction with automated temperature compensation from the battery charger, EquaLink ensures that every battery cell or block receives its optimum charging voltage while eliminating cell conditions such as sulfation, dry-out, over charge, undercharge, and float voltage imbalances which lead to short service life and failures in long-life designed battery products.
With active balancing of float voltages, every cell is fully charged and at maximum capacity.
The elimination of sulfation / dry-out, reductions in positive plate grid corrosion, reduction in the need for frequent equalization, and reduced watering requirements are just some of the benefits from an active management system which goes beyond just watching your batteries. We now have the ability to prolong a battery’s life.
The choice in correct battery construction technology matched with optimum control over charging characteristics will bring the realization of a 20 year service life to the flooded battery industry.
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