Articles
Who
Engineering firm Go Greener Energy has launched a range of backup power supply units that use high power lithium-ion batteries instead of lead acid batteries.
Technology
The Lithium Power Stack (pictured) batteries feature an active battery management system to increase longevity, reliability, and efficiency. Bob Wilcox, managing director of Go Greener Energy, said that depending on ambient temperature, the Lithium Power Stack system loses only 3% of its charge a month, compared to a 25% loss with lead acid batteries. That makes the lithium-ion system more efficient and reduces power bills.
Wilcox said: “Many people have been focused on Lithium-ion batteries for vehicles. The advantages of lithium for backup power are exactly the same, except in backup systems zero maintenance, charge retention and discharge efficiency are key.”
The lithium-ion systems have a high power density and are 30% smaller and 15% lighter than the equivalent lead acid-based systems. They can be remotely monitored to assess current charging/discharging, voltage, capacity available, cell condition and temperature.
The battery management system features automatic cell balancing and redundancy management so the ultimate failure of a cell does not compromise the whole battery.
Batteries are available for system voltages 12V to 537V. Storage capacity can be increased by simply adding modular units in parallel. Some of the larger installations have capacities greater than 1,300Ah (360kWhrs).
Application
According to Wilcox, an increasing number of organisations are using Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS). There are tens of thousands of installations across Europe, he said, from control systems in power plants and transmission stations to transport systems and data centres. Almost all of these installed systems use lead acid batteries to store the power.
The use of lithium instead of lead acid also eliminates the health and safety problems of handling acid-based materials. They do not require hydrogen vents and with their smaller footprint can be put alongside equipment such as computer servers. If used in remote locations the batteries do not require as much visual checking as lead acid batteries.
The Lithium Power Stack’s increased reliability also makes it suitable for high-security applications.