APC launches Battery Management System

href="http://dqchannels.ciol.com/content/reselleralert/109111005.asp">APC
by Schneider Electric announced the
launch of a smart charging and remote battery management for
stationary batteries in datacenters 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 APC Battery Management System
monitors 2-, 4-, 8-, or 12v VRLA or Wet cell or 1.2 or 2.4v
Nickel-Cadmium batteries in use in Data Center, Facility, and
Industrial applications.

The Battery Management 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.

The individual battery charging feature
prevents charge related problems, such as over & under charging
and thermal runaway from developing. The ability to observe the
system in operation, acknowledge alarms, download data and upload
software makes the system reachable by remote experts or for routine
data visits and permits individual replacements.

“APC's intelligent Battery
Management System adds life to your batteries, lowers cost of
ownership by identifying and helping replace only the faulty battery
instead of the whole string. All of APC by Schneider Electric
solutions are based on such intelligent technology innovations which
help reduce wastage of energy, money and real estate space. This sort
of customer-centric approach aligns us to our client's main
criteria of significant cost savings while maintaining business
resiliency, security, uptime and 24 x7 high availability,” said GB
Ravichandra, Director-Enterprise Business, APC by Schneider
Electric.

href="http://dqchannels.ciol.com/content/reselleralert/109080702.asp">The
company set up a data center training facility August 2009.