pti battery monitoring webinar #1

CELLWATCH Everyday Battery MonitoringIf its not everyday its not battery monitoring

04/10/23 1

Worldwide excellence in battery monitoring

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What is battery monitoring

Is a method to monitor rechargeable batteriesBy wikipedia

Battery Monitoring is,The tools to verify a batteries ability to supply design current under rated loadB

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Batteries can fail in as little as 2 days making quarterlymaintenance totally inadequate in critical installations

Over 75% of UPS failures can be attributed to battery failure. (Including generator start batteries)

Any string of batteries is only as good as it’s weakest cell

“10 Year” batteries have a service life between 4 – 6 years(Typically changed out at three to four years)

“20 Year” batteries have a service life between 12 – 15 years(Typically changed out at 5 to 6 years)

Batteries near end-of-life have lost 20% of their original load capacityand 50% of their original runtime

…because investing in your UPS power protection equipment alone is not enough to guarantee that your UPS will be available when required.B

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Normal Conditions: 40 x 12 volt jars = 480V

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Single Battery Failure: 40 x 12 volt jars = 0V

40 Jar Cabinet Contains 240 Individual Cells

Brian Hanking

It never fails to amaze me how many intelligent people do not know this...never stop saying it...it WILL pay off!


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Technology is the same as 100 years ago but spacerestraints are much tighter

Batteries are almost always designed down to a cost

Manufacturers have been forced to have their batteriesmade overseas to compete.

Quality is sacrificed for quantity, volume

Longer shipping distances, excessive handling, increases initial and ultimate failure rate and reliability

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David Brown

It is an irony to me that as the value attributed to data loss has increased in the last ten years, so the price people are willing to pay for their batteries has fallen.We bridge the value gap.


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High or uneven temperatures

Inaccurate float charge voltage

Loose inter-cell links or connections

Loss of electrolyte due to drying out ordamaged case

Lack of maintenance, ageing

Design / published parameters never meet up with realistic expectations, 10yr only lasting 5yrs

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Batteries fail because they have:


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Plate separation

Plate cracking

Plate warping

Internal and external short-circuit

Grid corrosion

Sulfation of plates

Excessive gassing

Drying out

Thermal runaway• Most problems are not noticable visually

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These problems result in:

Brian Hanking

Plate separation - bad manufacturing processInternal short circuit - Heat and warping under loadExternal short circuit - Leaking electrolyte Grid corrosion - OverchargingSulfation of plates - Stored for too long with no charge or charger set too lowExcessive gassing - OverchargingDrying out - OverchargingThermal runaway - Overcharging


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Types of Batteries to Monitor

Lead Acid Lithium Ion

All VRLA Battery Types All Wet Cell Battery Types

UPS Applications Utility Applications

Telecom Applications Switchgear Applications

Remote Station Applications SubStation Applications


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Differences

In

Monitoring Solutions

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Brian Hanking

So we have talked about why you need monitoring but why do you need Cellwatch monitoring...let me tell you why...


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Daily Cell or Jar/Block Ohmic Value (low energy)

Daily Cell or Jar/Block Voltage

Discharge Current

String Voltage

Discharge Time

String Currents

Pilot Temperature

Ambient Temperature

Brian Hanking

Cellwatch monitors all these battery parameters to tell the customer the state of his battery...many of the other systems do this also but with one subtle difference...see next slide


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Monthly Cell or Jar/Block Ohmic Value (low energy)


Discharge Current

String Voltage

Discharge Time

String Currents

Pilot Temperature

Ambient Temperature

Brian Hanking



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Bi-Monthly Cell or Jar/Block Ohmic Value (low energy)


Discharge Current

String Voltage

Discharge Time

String Currents

Pilot Temperature

Ambient Temperature

Brian Hanking



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PM

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Quarterly Cell or Jar/Block Ohmic Value w/Cellcorder

Quarterly Cell or Jar/Block Voltage

NA……………..…Discharge Current

UPS ………………String Voltage

UPS ………………Discharge Time

NA ………………..String Currents

NA …………………Pilot Temperature

NA …………………Ambient Temperature

Brian Hanking



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Let us say your monitor checked your batteries on the 1st of September

The jar has fully failed on the 5th.4 days later

Some monitors only recommend testing every 14 days in this case leaving the customer exposed with a failed battery for 9 days

Some monitors even recommend testing only every 28 days in this caseleaving the customer exposed to battery failure for a whole 23 days!

Quarterly maintenance

Brian Hanking

Here we can see that if the battery had been tested (either manually or by a another monitoring system) on the 1st of September then the battery failing on the 5th means that with another monitoring system the user would have been exposed between 9 days and 23 days plus the battery replacement time in each case. With quarterly maintenance the exposure time is 85 days!With Cellwatch....


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Complete failure took only two days

Cellwatch Alarms

Alarm investigatedBad bloc linked outBattery ordered

Battery replaced

Cellwatch Detects Failure

Alber & BTech do not

Brian Hanking

With a Cellwatch system exposure time was only one day plus battery replacement time. It is very much quicker with Cellwatch monitoring daily.


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Why not Battery Monitoring?

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Brian Hanking

So we have talked about why you need monitoring but why do you need Cellwatch monitoring...let me tell you why...


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Expensive compared to? • The Data Center being dropped? • UNPlanned outages?• Servers not restarting, failing• lost data? • lost revenue?• Lost faith in the system supporting the load

Don’t make the mistake of comparing the cost of a monitoring system with the cost of another battery string…

Even two strings….. Only 2 cells out of 480 can cause shutdown

“It is too expensive”

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Brian Hanking

OK its not really a reason why you dont need Cellwatch exactly but it is a reason that many people put forward for not haveing Cellwatch or even monitoring generally. They site the fact that they can buy another string of batteries for the same price...(See next slide)


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Up to $50K46%

$50k to $250K28%

$251k to $1M18%

Over $1M8%

Hourly costs of unplanned downtime


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Still at risk of battery failure because you are not checking them daily.

Up to 5% of batteries fail during the warranty period, 2-3 years

Throwing away a high percentage of good batteries after 4 years

Throwing away dollars, odds are better, but you are still betting

Increased downtime, running on Generator, switching loads, increased opportunity for system failure

Environmental issues caused (disposal)

Expense of disposal

Who’s watching it when the installers go home?

“I change my batteries every four years”

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Servicing is better than no servicing but:

Still at risk of battery failure because you are not checking them

daily.

Four times a year is not enough in today’s critical uptime

environment

Handheld testing is not as repeatable as Cellwatch

Discharge tests, adverse effect on weak cells

What happens when the service engineers go home?

No real status on battery condition for 361 days out of 365.

“I have a battery service contract”

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Still at risk of battery failure because you are not checking them daily.

Does not give battery security unless it is used every day

Best case…no real battery status for 25% of the time (assuming a test every month).

Worst case…no real battery status for 92% of the time (assuming quarterly testing)

Not as repeatable as Cellwatch

Who is trending the data?

Much more labor intensive

Much more risk prone, safety issues (for the tester, the company and the battery)

Long downtime is essential each time it is used

“I have a handheld tester”

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Still at risk of battery failure because they won’t recommend daily

testing of ohmic values.

Cellwatch measures ohmic value daily and was specifically designed to do so

Cellwatch pioneered ohmic measurements in 1996 and still leads the way

Competitors “hit” their batteries with a much larger test load so have to recommend doing ohmic testing less often

Some competitors do not measure ohmic value at all

Cellwatch is the easiest, simplest and hence the quickest to install

Large conduit and cable-tray considerations with these older systems.

Competitors system constraints make a cluttered installation

“I always use another make of monitor”

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Courtesy - C&D Technology Inc

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In the late 1990s, Johnson Controls, (now C&D Batteries), produced a very comprehensive set of

literature on battery behavior. One of these is called:

“Impedance and Conductance Testing”

(Now referred to as Ohmic testing)


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Courtesy - C&D Technology Inc

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It also said that:“…actual values may vary +/-20% from value shown… The significance of

values measured lies not so much in the specific value but how the value changes from its original value over a period of time.”


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This graph shows that with normal ageing these batteries have increased their ohmic value by 14% over 3 years (average)

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If we take 2.4mOhms as the start point,Cell 1 reaches an increase of 25% on May 30thBecause Cellwatch measures daily Cell 1 is changed out immediately after the first alarm safeguarding the battery and the load!!

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Assuming the same delivery time to get a replacementcell, other monitoring systems could have left the customer exposed for much longer periods.

Quarterly maintenance only could mean up to 119 days exposure!


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IEEE 1188 Manual System Cellwatch

Monthly System Float Voltage, Charger current, Temperature and ventilation and visual checks

Constantly

(Not ventilation although temp can indicate failed AC)

Not visual

Quarterly Monthly checks plus –

Cell / unit ohmic values, negative terminal temperature, interconnect resistance.

Voltage every hour,

ohmic once a day

Semi-annual

All monthly and quarterly plus –

Voltage of each cell / unit

Voltage every hour,

ohmic once a day

Yearly All the above plus cell to cell and interconnect resistance.

Performance Test

Voltage every hour,

ohmic once a day.

Any discharge

gives a graph of voltage performance under load

Manual testing vs. CellwatchOnly IEEE Cellwatch does not meet is the Visual Checks

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Cost justifications

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Based on 160 Jar System

Inspection & Test$1100 for 40 jars, $800 for each additional 40

jars$3,500 per visit x 4 = 14k annually

Discharge Test$5,600 – Conservative

Jar Replacement1% Annually

Battery replacement 4 years, cost 8.5K

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Brian Hanking

Figures obviously vary depending on region, battery size and type etc but our figures are based on 4 cabinets of 40 jars in Eastern North America


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Cellwatch Installation; 1 Cabinet – 25K

PM Schedule changed to Annual -10,500 Over 12 years savings; $126,000 Due to 24 hour monitoring, increased battery usage to 7 years.Previous; 3 battery replacements, 12yrs 96KCurrent w/ Cellwatch; 2 battery replacements, 14yrs 64k Savings; 32k

Total Savings: Over 168K savings on this system

The above does not take in account the advantage of 24x7 monitoring. Also, any company with many strings Of batteries will see significant savings each year.ONLY replace batteries which need replacing.


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Cellwatch systems are supporting critical loads in over 30 countriesaround the World

There are no customers, operating Cellwatch who have had a “dropped” load due to battery failure.

The reason?

Cellwatch is designed to monitor batteries for ohmic value DAILY

Cellwatch allows full visibility of the TOTAL battery install (including the generator)

High level of reliability is maintained by changing suspect cells well beforea failure occurs

Many Cellwatch systems pick up battery faults on install

Allows 24/7 monitoring

Gives REAL usable data of each cell or jar/bloc in the battery systemCel

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Brian Hanking

Cellwatch was designed from the outset to have minimal effect on the battery. When many companies were using high currents on their equipment NDSL were working to make measurements with the minimal current possible. This was to ensure that we have the absolute minimal effect on the battery. Although a tougher task NDSL were determined that Cellwatch would be able to measure ohmic value every single day without affecting the battery.


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Daily monitoring of ohmic values

Advanced optical technology

CE & UL certified

Continuous monitoring 24/7

Scalable system

Fiber optic data highway

Easy to install, user friendly software

Measures: voltage, ohmic value, current and temperature

Actual on-battery indication of failed cell location

Full discharge recording

Remote monitoring facilities

Web browsing, Email alert, SMS

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Eliminates costly downtime and disruption due to battery failure

Daily surveillance of ohmic values, 24 x 7 watchdog

Uses trending to highlight weakening cells prior to failure thereby

predicting battery failure

Optimizes battery assets by only replacing weak cells

Full cell/bloc history allows validation of battery warranty claims

Proactive versus reactive battery asset management

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If its not everyday its not battery monitoring

End presentation

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pti battery monitoring webinar #1

Documents

battery string

years batteries

battery problems

string single battery

types of batteries

risk of battery failure

year batteries

rechargeable batteries