When your business relies on having a continuous power source, it’s important to protect this supply of energy. By looking after your UPS system battery with a careful maintenance routine, you can optimise both its lifespan and its performance, making the most of your investment. Furthermore, by taking care of your battery through remote monitoring, you could be saving your business the expense of early UPS battery repair or replacement.
The Importance of Monitoring Your UPS Battery
The main value of a UPS battery is its ability to power a business’ operations at a time of greatest need. This battery is relied upon to deliver energy for power outages from a few minutes up to a number of hours and, therefore, it’s essential that your UPS battery is up to this demanding task.
It also needs to be ready to respond fast to any loss of power. In real terms, that means a time lapse of 25ms or less between a power failure and the UPS system kicking in if vital operations are to be kept live without disruption. This means that the bottom line is always that you need to monitor your UPS battery to ensure it will be ready to serve you when you need it the most.
Choose RTUs for the Best Remote Monitoring
RTUs, or Remote Terminal Units, are now viewed as the industry standard when it comes to ensuring continuous remote monitoring of a UPS system. Such a unit is a device that operates separately from the UPS system, which means that even if the system itself loses all power, the RTU will still be able to send a critical alert to the people who need to know. RTUs can send alerts via a variety of means, including LANs, telephone message, or fibre, and come equipped with their own back up battery. There are further approaches that can make the most of a RTUs ability to monitor a UPS battery’s performance effectively.
1- Temperature Monitoring Meets Voltage Tracking
Keeping track of your UPS battery’s temperature is essential to ensuring that it will be able to perform to its maximum capacity. A typical UPS battery should be kept at a safe temperature range and any indication that your battery’s temperature is rising could signal that there is an issue with the battery strings.
Linking temperature monitoring with voltage monitoring is a very effective technique, helping to show a clear overview of remaining battery life, and can be simply achieved with many RTUs.
2- Monitor Cells, Not Just Strings
If your UPS battery monitoring system is just looking at the battery string, then you could be missing out on vital early warning signs that something is wrong. The best remote monitoring approach will look at each individual cell, letting you know if one battery or more is creating a drain on the others in the string and enabling you to factor in any necessary UPS battery repair before the system is called into use.
3- Choose the Right Alert Delivery Method
It’s no use having a sophisticated remote monitoring system if the alerts aren’t spotted in time. Opting for a flexible assortment of alerts (including text messages, Building Management Software notifications, email, and voice alerts) will increase the chances of that vital alert getting seen and dealt with in the necessary timeframe.
Protect Against the Need For UPS Battery Repair Or Replacement
A regular maintenance program is key to ensuring that your UPS battery can give you a long lifespan of optimal performance. After all, you want your UPS battery to be able to spring into life exactly when you need it the most. Such a maintenance routine should start by being mindful as to where any batteries are stored. Keeping them safely away from areas where they could be exposed to fluctuations in temperature, dust, damp, or caustic fumes is the first requirement.
Maintenance should also include noting the float voltage, as well as regularly scheduled tests, such as conductance, impedance and load bank tests, to give you the security of knowing that everything is ready to perform exactly as it should or to give you a chance to remedy any issues before the generator or battery is needed for real.
