Total, low-cost standby battery monitoring

Nigel Scott, technical and business development manager at LEM, describes new approaches that enable standby battery systems to be continuously monitored during their service life – offering the capability to detect potential failures before they happen.

Over the past 30 years the standby battery industry has become dominated by the valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery, with its cousin the Gel. These high-capacity sealed cells are used to support a wide variety of critical systems. The batteries are held on a small continuous float charge, and this affects the failure modes of the cells.

Although based . . .