Do you regularly look inside your UPS system, also called an uninterruptable power supply system, and check on your battery status?
With the bad power supply conditions we are experiencing in South Africa, it is more important now than ever before to regularly check your UPS and monitor it for any signs of possible failure.
UPS batteries are consumables
A UPS has many consumable parts, including batteries, fans, and capacitors, that all have a limited service life. In the case of batteries, service life is severely reduced with daily power failures resulting in the battery cycling instead of being operated under its design, which is occasional discharge.
Unfortunately, many UPS users assume that their battery backup will last forever when, in reality, the battery backup time will be reduced with usage, depth of discharging each time, and age. Depending on these factors, a battery may need to be replaced as often as every six months to three to five or eight years. The latter, depending on the make.
In the case of some UPS manufacturers, the battery replacement kits are more expensive than buying a new complete UPS, so people will rather throw away their UPS and buy a new one. However, with large UPS systems like those used in data centre, medical, petrochemical, commercial, banking, and insurance sector power backup applications, it is too expensive to replace the whole unit, so only the battery is replaced. The same can apply if you get a reputable UPS supplier like Standby Systems to change the battery only and save you a lot of money. The best way is to drop the UPS off at their workshop so that the change can be affected in-house, thereby eliminating travel and time charges to go to site.
As a battery in a UPS is critical to the systems operation and your load uptime from the inverter, there are a number of preventative measures you can take to ensure you get maximum expected service life from your battery and thus try to get the most usage from your backup power system with the lowest total cost of ownership.
There are several ways to ensure that you get the best and longest service life out of your UPS and battery. Let’s take look.
Make sure your UPS and its battery are operated in a clean, cool, and low-humidity environment
A lead acid battery will perform better at high temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius than its published performance discharge data, but this will result in somewhat seriously reduced service life. Extended operation above 25 degrees Celsius can reduce service life by up to 90% of what the battery is designed to give. High dust levels and humidity can cause tracking on the UPS inverter and rectifier power components resulting in a short circuit and catastrophic damage, meaning a complete UPS replacement will be necessary. Thus it is imperative to ensure that the operational environment is as close to ideal as possible.
As with any electronic device, a UPS generates heat, and thus it needs to breathe to cool down, or it will blow up. To prevent this, a UPS cannot be installed in a sealed or closed-up environment. Make sure the UPS unit has enough free space to ventilate properly.
Battery storage
Some people would think that you should keep a replacement battery all the time in case it is needed, but a lead-acid sealed battery or VRLA battery cannot be stored for periods of about three months before requiring a refresher charge. This is due to the fact that any battery has an internal resistance called impedance, resulting in self-discharge at a relatively low rate when on the shelf. The storage temperature will also determine the rate of self-discharge and, thus, the frequency of when the battery will require a refresher charge. To keep a set of batteries spare is really not practical for most UPS users, so rather rely on a fresh set of batteries available ex-stock from Standby Systems battery stores which are fully air-conditioned, and where batteries are recharged regularly.
Preventative UPS and battery maintenance
To ensure that your UPS is always available to back up your critical loads when the power fails, it is important that regular preventative maintenance is performed on both UPS and the battery. Doing this will help predict any failing components and batteries before they fail catastrophically. Battery terminals will be checked for tightness, and any corrosion of terminals treated when necessary. If a battery is left unchecked, it will become a fire hazard when it reaches end of life, with additional risk of damaging the UPS if it explodes.
Choose UPS loads with minimum energy consumption
Try as much as possible to make use of the highest efficiency loads, thereby reducing the overall load on the UPS and reducing the demand on the backup battery. This will help ensure the best possible in-service life expectancy.
Time to replace your battery?
Even by using best practices as discussed above, there will come a time when our UPS battery needs to be replaced. You will know a replacement is due when the backup time starts getting less with each occasional discharge.
Standby Systems has a wide range of high-performance, high-rate VRLA batteries available that will offer you increased run time at affordable pricing, so contact us or visit our website for more information.