Imagine; you have just purchased and installed a series of industrial batteries in the middle of winter to help provide backup power to your telecom tower site. Everything is set up correctly, your tower has backup power, and you know they will supply reliable energy reserves for the duration of their lifetimes. Now you can rest easy knowing you have done everything right?
The settings you calibrate in winter will not provide the same efficiency and capability to keep batteries charged in summer. A great deal of energy waste and additional expenditure occurs when these assets require more power to keep the system running at peak levels due to temperature and voltage fluctuations. Even more concerning, the life of your batteries is directly affected by how well a stable and safe temperature and voltage are maintained as they remain charged.
In order to confront these issues, service providers are supposed to keep a constant close watch on their installations to maintain optimal charging efficiency and battery longevity. However, that site inspection usually happens only once every six months to a year, and it can even be years between inspections.
So how are organizations supposed to perform regular, resource-intensive performance checks and maintain peak performance levels while maximizing efficiency? Galooli’s Energy as a Service (EaaS) solutions provide oversight of battery management so your company can focus its resources elsewhere.
Before we dive into our new battery monitoring feature, lets first go over float voltage compensation and why it’s so crucial to optimizing batteries.
What is Float Voltage Compensation and Why Does it Matter?
Every chemical reaction is influenced on some level by temperature, and battery charging as an electrochemical reaction is no exception. As a battery’s temperature increases, gassing increases accordingly. This means the warmer the battery gets, the more gas is released, and the colder it gets, and the more resistant it is to charging.
Therefore, battery charging voltages should be adjusted according to battery temperature. This calibration is also called temperature compensation, a charging function that ensures the under or overcharging of batteries is prevented regardless of temperature. This process is what is known as float voltage compensation.
Why is this so important, you ask?
Batteries that are colder than the accepted temperature range will be undercharged, impacting performance, lifespan, and overall cost negatively. In the same way, batteries operating at temperatures higher than the norm will cause overcharging, drying out battery cells, and leading to corrosion and similar performance degradation. For some perspective, for every 10°C your battery temperature rises, battery life is reduced by 50%!
So what does all this mean in the long run? A lot of money lost and climbing OPEX and CAPEX costs for your organization. Fortunately, we have a solution to these challenges – A real-time EaaS battery monitoring system.
Actively Monitor Battery Performance and Save Money
Galooli’s platforms are specifically designed to reduce OPEX, extend battery life while ensuring optimal usage and energy saving. In order to achieve this, we have introduced a real-time recommendation feature to our Battery Overview Dashboard – the Float Voltage Recommendation.
This active battery monitoring system will remotely track live changes in backup battery temperature while offering an optimal charging voltage recommendation to the customer based on manufacture specifications and live temperature readings.
Our live Battery Monitor offers real-time data and alerts relating to temperature and voltage reaching levels outside your set norms at both ends of the spectrum. The monitor offers service providers advanced warnings before a potential problem becomes irreversible.
This allows organizations to quickly take care of any problematic batteries and make sure you only make visits to remote sites for maintenance and upkeep when absolutely necessary. The Battery Overview Dashboard can also provide protection against batteries being damaged or stolen by providing live alerts and GPS-enhanced tracking.
Give Your Batteries The Lifespan They Deserve
Service providers are wasting money on unnecessary energy expenditure, and it is about time that trend stopped. Keeping backup batteries charged according to more than the factory settings will save your company significant additional overhead from inefficient usage, additional maintenance, and early replacement.
Galooli’s platform can help not only optimize your batteries but offer a host of monitoring and management capabilities to ensure your energy sources and fleets are running at peak efficiency and at minimum cost.
