INTERNET BATTERY MANAGEMENT

PROFILE: INTERNET BATTERY MANAGEMENT

Better battery management and monitoring could revolutionise the way we look at energy storage.



Charge for energy, not batteries



Would you buy a car without a fuel gauge? Or without a thermometer to measure engine temperature? Or meter to look at the mileage? Of course not. How on earth could you maintain your car in a healthy shape?

More to the point, would you sell such a product — and also offer a warranty of the car’s reliability! — to your customers? Because that’s the situation as it stands with the present business model we have for buying and selling batteries. The customer receives a battery, and related warranty, without any means to check that the battery will perform as required.

“The trouble is battery life is a function of usage and its environment,” says Klaus-Dieter Merz, a battery veteran having spent almost three decades with Exide (Sonnenschein) and now a vice president of Abertax Technologies.

“High discharge currents, high temperatures, deep discharges and low acid levels, can dramatically reduce battery life. Different operational conditions have a big impact on real battery life and the theoretical lifetime of 1200 cycles can be either higher or lower depending on the complete drive system design.

If the battery fails before its lifetime (warranty) there are always arguments between the customer and supplier on whether the battery was of low quality or the battery was abused during its use.

“This approach to business is out-dated,” says Merz.

It also looks irrelevant when you realise that the initial investment in the hardware of a battery and charger is only about a third of the overall operational cost in the service life of a battery. The other two thirds are equally shared between the energy cost and the service cost.

It is clear that a battery management unit is a vital piece of equipment in motive power applications.

Jospeh Cilia, a professor at the University of Malta, has spent most of his academic and business life looking at the issue. He is also the chief executive at Abertax. “As a firm we’re a specialist in such battery management,” he says. “We’ve almost 20 years’ field experience has resulted in precise algorithms for accurate calculation of the energy balance taking into consideration all influencing factors such as temperature, deep discharge, overcharge and the like.”

Abertax has two fully developed products suitable for all motive power applications. Both devices, the BMS (Battery Monitoring System) and the BMU (Battery Management Unit) are built in robust, acid proof plastic boxes (IP 66). Both can be enhanced with optional accessories to meet all requirements in motive power applications.

Long experience in battery data measurement in field applications has resulted in extensive battery data and algorithms that make the software in these systems one of the most precise and reliable in the market. The software designed is user-friendly and can be easily modified to suit particular customer needs. Both devices have the ability to measure necessary parameters like:

Temperature (battery and ambient);

Electrolyte level;

Half voltage; and,

Current.



The main advantages of these available systems are they are all:

Based on the same algorithm and are therefore precise and reliable;

Re-programmable and can be used for other batteries;

Enhanced with other features (fan, SOC indicator, charger control); and,

Adjustable to specific customer requirements



The main functions are:

Battery control with alarm function at high temperature, low acid level, deep discharge, etc;

Data measurement and storage of all battery data and operation conditions;

Calculation of battery energy, cycles, SOC and life;

Statistics of all data are stored in short and long term history;

Data transmission via RS232, USB or wireless;

Remote diagnosis and automatic failure alarm indications;

Calculation of energy consumption for rental and leasing service; and,

Fleet management.




Field experience has shown that while the above data is useful and welcomed by any service provider and customer, they are reluctant to go through the trouble of connecting to the device to get the data.

Basically, if data has to be read out near or directly on the vehicle, this consumes time and accessibility of the vehicle is not guaranteed. In most cases this is a cumbersome task. Moreover, the technicians who carry out routine battery maintenance are not usually expected to run around with a laptop.

However even if this is the case, wireless communication methods that were used so far, such as infrared, bluetooth, wifi, zigbee, etc have marked limitations and involve the customer’s infrastructure which cannot be guaranteed at all times. Therefore while everybody can see the advantages of having such a battery management unit, only a few decide to implement it due to its “offline” operation.

Abertax Technologies has designed Online Battery Management whereby the independent battery uses mobile communication through GPRS between the battery and the internet.

Although this is not the cheapest option of accessing the data it is the most reliable and ensures a quality service. Advances in mobile telephony mean that even third world countries can take advantage of these benefits.

The main advantages of Online Battery Management are:



available from any location;

24/7 availability;

saves driving cost (CO2 friendly);

needs no hardware installation on site; and,

can easily installed on any battery in a couple of minutes.



“This small upfront investment is more than worth the extra expense when looking at the advantages gained,” says Björn Mentzer, vice president for marketing at Abertax. “The idea of transferring data via mobile telephony has made the battery independent. This opens a wide range of new opportunities such as to charge for the energy and not the battery — something which could never be implemented before.

“Given that we already expect similar billing for other services, such as mobile phones and the like, Abertax Technologies strongly believe that customers will expect this in the future!”


http://www.abertax.com/uploads/media/E1002-01-BMU_brochure.pdf


QUOTE BOX

This opens a wide range of new opportunities such as to charge for the energy and not the battery — something which could never be implemented before

Abertax releases another version of their Innovative Valve for VRLA batteries – The GRS M27 Valve.

GRS M27

Abertax releases another version of their Innovative Valve for VRLA batteries – The GRS M27 Valve.

GRS 

Abertax, the Malta-based company manufacturing advanced battery, accessories, has released their innovative valve for providing the ideal gas release system (GRS) in M27 size as well now, making their technology available for a wider range of 2V cells in VRLA batteries — both for gel and high quality absorbent glass matt (AGM).

Until now the patented valve has only been available in the smaller M18 size. Abertax says other sizes will be later made available — the M27s became available at the end of March — and an adaptor 27 with bayonet fitting should appear shortly.

Since battery venting is the prime reason for humidity loss in VRLA batteries, the GRS design and technology providing the right release pressure of a better valve can dramatically keep moisture levels higher and so extend the battery life. Additionally, the diaphragm design in the GRS also ensures the prevention of air entering the cells which potentially damages the plates.

“One of the prime advantages of our GRS is the very low tolerances of closing pressure consistency of our opening and closing pressures,” says Dr Joseph Cilia, the research Director of Abertax. “And we have rigorously tested them in some extreme field conditions.”

The valve can be supplied in various ranges of opening pressures, with the lowest range starting at 150mbar and the highest with an opening pressure at 400mbar. Thus the valve can be designed to give the optimal pressure for any battery size and design.

To ensure the consistency of the GRS, Abertax devised special calibration equipment to measure these pressures.

Although the fundamental chemistry of the lead acid battery is virtually unchanged since the mid-19th century, Mr KD Merz, the battery expert at Abertax, says there are still refinements to be made. “For the past decade or more battery developers have looked to alternative chemistries in seeking an advanced battery,” he says. “And engineering design in and around the battery has been left relatively unexplored.”

Research into the economies that a high quality valve such as the GRS can bring has been scarce, say Abertax, and has been difficult to quantify as gassing and venting are often a function of how efficiently or inefficiently charging or discharging a battery is being carried out.

However, all manufacturers are aware that a better GRS produces a better battery.

Abertax presently produces around 500,000 GRS a year but it has spare production capacity to make up to 2 million annually from its headquarters in Paola in Malta. “But we’re planning to up production to around 11 million a year in the next couple of years,” says Ing George Schembri, general manager at Abertax.

Abertax reckons that there will be a big increase in demand for GRS for the new ‘stop-and-go’ applications as well as for the new generation of electric vehicles requiring further AGM batteries.

The firm, which has invested extensively in research and development — and has the capability to design and manufacture most of the machinery needed to produce a new range of GRS in-house — believes that automation provides it with a competitive edge against competition from Asian economies where labor costs are low.

“Once you have devised one set of machinery to produce the GRS,” says Ing Schembri who is an engineer specialized in high quality manufacturing. “It’s simply a question of replicating them to scale up production.”

Abertax says its original M18 valve has already undergone years of testing — both in-house and through independent monitoring in German laboratories — in a rugged, dirty environment, including prolonged exposure to sulphuric acid and dust, and has not been found wanting.

Article by Mike Hall Batteries International Magazine 2011