What need for temperature control and ventilation to battery rooms?
Summary
Battery Rooms require ventilation and a maintained temperature range. How can the ventilation rate and temperature maintenance be designed to the optimum? The paper proposes the minimum performance requirements for the temperature range and ventilation of rooms containing the batteries supporting Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems.
Battery rooms contain sealed-for-life valve regulated lead acid battery cells. They have a design life of which one criteria on which this is assessed is the room temperature. Their ability to provide an electrical supply is also governed partly by the room temperature. The paper addresses how the varying ambient temperature in the UK may be best used and how the temperature range to be controlled in battery rooms need not be small. Having a wide temperature range can lead to adequate operating conditions and life expectancy.
Batteries exhaust hydrogen; but very little and not often. The risks are explained and a ventilation rate based on the hydrogen gassing rate is proposed.
With an agreed set of minimum performance requirements the opportunity exists to:
– Drive out unnecessary complexity of installation.
– Drive out unnecessary complexity of operation.
– Gain more consistency of design and application.
– Reduce capital and operational expenditure.