• APC by Schneider Electric

Battery Management System

APC by Schneider Electric, a global leader in integrated critical power and cooling services, offers a smart charging and remote battery management for stationary batteries in data centres and facilities. The APC Battery Management System is a comprehensive approach that will not only perform the usual monitoring tasks but will also mitigate the potential for problems caused by under and over charging of batteries. It will improve availability by ensuring batteries are optimally charged and ready for use. The system monitors 2-, 4-, 8-, or 12 V VRLA or wet cell or 1.2 or 2.4 V Nickel-Cadmium batteries in use in data centre, facility, a nd industrial applications. The system consists of a processor running custom firmware controlling selector circuits, a voltage monitor, a current monitor and an isolated current source. The manager connects to the battery via a Battery Selector and reads the voltage of the battery. After completing a reading cycle, the manager then determines which, if any, batteries need boosting, sequentially connects the Isolated Charger to those individual batteries requiring boosting, and applies a boost current to only those batteries requiring it. During the Response test, the Battery Manager uses the Battery Selectors to connect the Isolated Charger to each battery in the string. After the Response test is finished, the individual current characteristics of each battery are compared to an automatically stored baseline, and batteries that show excessive deviation from the baseline are flagged as needing attention.