Service life limitations of flooded lead acid batteries in UPS service

The author describes difficulties that have evolved in the application of flooded lead-acid batteries to uninterruptible power systems (UPS) service. It is suggested that industry pressures for greater power densities appear to have resulted in developments that may have been counter-productive to the service life of the UPS cells. The high-current, short-term discharge characteristics that are desirable for UPS applications result in battery designs tuned to less than optimum life. Uninterruptible power systems are generally applied to large computer data centers. The data center managers, who administer these applications, tend to be less informed on the life/construction characteristics of batteries that can result in unforeseen and severe economic losses for their management. The author describes efforts by the IEEE to provide applications documentation designed to reduce this information gap, to bring the matter out into the open, and to reduce these competitive pressures on the battery and UPS industries