Simply monitoring the overall plant voltage from your sites isn't enough to ensure a timely response to developing battery problems. By the time site voltage levels start to drop, its too late. In many cases, you have less than 8 hours to repair battery cells and/or strings before complete failure of the battery occurs, which likely means service interruption.

Individual cells within a battery string can start to break down long before the problem is apparent in terms of plant voltage. If left unchecked, this can eventually lead to 'runaway' conditions causing heating, as well as generation of hydrogen gases that can explode. Thermal runaway can also create H2S gassing which is very corrosive and will damage equipment within the cabinet. The breakdown of a cell is initially indicated by a fluctuation in voltage, but this small fluctuation is indistinguishable when only the overall plant voltage is being measured. Westronic has addressed this problem by providing mid-point battery measurement, which can detect an imbalance between the two string segments, and report user defined threshold levels as alarms to the Network Operations Center. This proactive approach can help operations and maintenance personnel address the problems before they become catastrophic. This protects the capital investment and can help to reduce service outages caused by battery problems.