The best battery for standby use has always been a topic for discussion. This question applies across all industries, including banking, commercial, insurance, medical, and the IT sector, where UPS systems are used.
Data backup is critical to the sustainability of any business, and this includes the security of the records that need to be backed up, stored, and utilized daily. The accessibility of this data during load shedding and power outages is of paramount importance.
So what battery is best, then?
Standby Systems will shed some light on what battery is best for your particular application.
As in any UPS standby system, the battery is the heart of the application. When the battery cannot perform, people are quick to point fingers and blame the UPS. At the end of the day, the salesperson should be held accountable if they did not provide the battery best suited to the intended application.
What does it mean to specify a battery correctly?
Well, it is like being told that you need to prepare for a hike. You might think, “Sure, I can do that, but where are we going?” That is where the specification comes into play. The following questions need to be asked. How long is the hike? Over how many days will it take place? In what environment will we be walking? How do we get there? And so on.
Let’s say you are told that the hike is across the desert and is going to take three days and two nights to complete. Now you have a better idea of what equipment you need for the journey. Your hiking plan can be compared to the Riello UPS system.
Now, imagine you are advised to take only one litre of water. You’re told that any more than that will weigh too much. Following this analogy, the water you take on your hike is like the battery you choose to power your system. Perhaps carrying less weight in water is as appealing as paying less for a battery.
And so, you begin your hike. Everything goes well for the first three hours until you discover that you don’t have any more water left because you drank it all. The fact that you have all the right equipment to complete the journey doesn’t matter anymore. Without water, you can’t continue. In the same way, an incorrectly specified battery will cause even the best UPS system to fail. As water is to you in your desert hike, so the battery is to the success of your backup supply system.
Without the right battery, your system cannot operate as intended.
That is why it is vital to specify the type of backup battery required for your system based on the environment in which it will operate.
How long do standby batteries take to charge?
Another important factor to take into consideration is the recharge and recovery time of the battery. This will have a significant impact on the Riello UPS system when load shedding is bumped up to STAGE 6 and higher—when the time between load shedding cycles isn’t long enough to recharge the battery to 100%.
Here is some useful information about batteries and recharging
- A UPS battery is intended for occasional discharges, not daily.
- A UPS battery needs 72 hours to get to a 100% state of charge, and with daily load shedding, it is just not capable of getting there.
- The repeated discharging from a partial state of charge (PSOC) results in an avalanche effect where backup time diminishes with every further discharge thereafter.
- All this is compounded by the added effect that a battery is only designed to perform a limited number of discharges, particularly deep discharges, i.e., more than 20 minutes at a time. This results in high reserve capacity being drawn from the battery at every discharge—every time there is load shedding, sometimes twice daily.
- A UPS battery subjected to long discharges especially deep discharges at low loads, will only be able to do this approximately 50 times before it starts showing signs of capacity loss. In other words, the battery is “used up.”
- A battery is a consumable product with usage determining the service life
In short, a UPS battery with high cycling under load shedding for long periods of several hours will start failing within four to six months, and the available standby time will exponentially decrease with every discharge.
Currently, there is no solution for everyday cycling other than lead-carbon batteries, which are only available in limited sizes. Another alternative is lithium solutions. Both are excessively expensive.
What types of batteries do you get?
There are many batteries on the market today, utilized for various applications.
Batteries fall into two categories: firstly, non-rechargeable and secondary rechargeable. They are then further categorized into the application to which they are best suited, for example, automotive batteries, standby batteries, leisure batteries, and so on.
Another subdividing factor to consider is the type of material that the battery is manufactured from, for example, Nicad, gel, lithium Ion, Phosphate, lead, etc.
At Standby Systems, we specify the correct Elite battery for the individual application based on the type, application, and size required. The following range of ELITE sealed batteries are sold with our Riello UPS and inverter systems and specified correctly for the equipment and application.
Elite VRLA UPS Battery
Elite Solar Application Batteries
Elite Deep Cycle & Long-Life Batteries
Elite Industrial Batteries
Elite General-Purpose Batteries
Elite Leisure Batteries
Is battery maintenance important?
There is no such thing as a maintenance-free battery. At some stage, all batteries must be maintained. At Standby Systems, we have a maintenance team that carries out battery maintenance so that the full lifecycle can be achieved.
For more information on batteries and maintenance requirements, you can visit the Standby Systems’ website, where Elite batteries and Riello UPS systems are explained in more detail or contact us on 011 794 2541 or 011 794 3406 or WhatsApp 082 450 2361 for advice regarding your specific needs.