Lithium battery will become a "new friend" of UPS battery in data center computer room

In recent years, with the rapid development of Internet and computer technology, information systems have been given more and more important tasks in enterprises, and it is necessary to provide support for various business activities of the company 24 hours a day. Therefore, enterprises have higher requirements for the security and reliability of data centers.

The UPS and the entire power supply system with it as the core are the most essential part of meeting the power quality of the data center. If the power supply system is unstable due to its own reasons or natural disasters, and the power supply is instantaneous or long-term interrupted, the information system will be down. The battery is one of the most important components of the entire system, and is the "last barrier" to ensure the stable operation of the entire power supply system.

At present, data center battery technology is mainly based on valve-regulated lead-acid batteries. In the current UPS supply field, the proportion of lead-acid battery solutions is over 90%. With the development of lithium batteries, its advantages have gradually become prominent. In the application of data center batteries, lithium batteries are expected to become "new friends".

According to research, the selection and design of data center UPS should meet the following principles: short-time constant power output characteristics, high energy density, high stability, fire retardant, high consistency, easy to install and expand, easy to maintain and Replacement and long service life. With the rise of Internet+, cloud computing, big data, etc. as a national strategy, the growth of the data center industry has further accelerated, which has also led to the rapid growth of data center infrastructure related equipment. However, UPS has some pain points in data center applications.

Application point of lead storage battery in large data center

Pain point 1: lead-acid battery covers a large area

According to incomplete statistics, the large data center battery area currently planned and designed accounts for about 3% to 10% of the total building area. If a lead-acid battery is used, the larger the building area of a large data center, the larger the required battery footprint. But for many IDC projects under construction, the computer room area is limited. And most data centers hope to increase the number of cabinets as much as possible and reduce the footprint of technical facilities. Lead-acid batteries have a large footprint and have become the biggest pain point in large data centers.

Pain point 2: battery monitoring system is not perfect

At present, many computer room battery monitoring systems are imperfect, and monitoring equipment is simple or not and there is great security risks. If the battery failure causes the UPS system to crash, the key business downtime will cause great economic losses, sometimes even political influence. According to industry surveys, the economic loss of the data center in the financial industry was $1,495,134 for one hour, and the economic loss per hour for the data center in the communications industry was $2,066,245.

Pain point 3: lead-acid batteries have short life and need regular maintenance

The life of lead-acid batteries is generally 5-6 years. How to better match the data center life cycle, thus reducing the total application cost, is also one of the pain points in the application of lead-acid batteries in the data center computer room.

Practice has proved that the factors that lead to shortening the service life of UPS lead-acid battery packs are: the consistency of the quality and performance of the battery individual is large, making the overall quality and performance of the battery pack difficult to guarantee; the battery pack uses a large change in ambient temperature; the battery pack It is often deeply discharged and not charged in time after discharge.

According to statistics, more than 50% of UPS faults are caused by battery pack failure or improper battery maintenance. Therefore, the application of lead storage batteries as energy storage batteries requires regular routine maintenance inspection system and careful implementation to ensure routine maintenance and regular inspections to ensure that the battery and charging circuit are in good operating condition.

Pain point 4: battery requires higher environmental requirements

At present, lead-acid batteries have higher requirements for ambient temperature, and their optimum operating temperature is 20~25°C. According to relevant data, when the ambient temperature is 25 °C, the temperature of the valve-controlled battery will be shortened by half and the cycle life of the battery will be shortened for every 6-10 °C increase in temperature. When the ambient temperature decreases, the available battery capacity decreases. Therefore, improving the battery's tolerance to the environment has become a difficult problem to be solved.

Lithium battery will become a "new friend" used by UPS

As far as the current market is concerned, most data centers and communication base stations use lead-acid batteries, but more because there is no better choice. With the development of battery technology, the technical level and cost performance of lithium batteries are gradually increasing, and the size is getting smaller and smaller, which will have a positive impact on the planning and design of the data center.

The use of lithium batteries perfectly avoids all the effects of lead-acid batteries. The advantages of high energy density, small size, light weight, long life and wide temperature range make the market “dump”. Forsythe's IDC power supply system for international enterprise IT consultants uses Emerson's lithium-ion battery UPS power supply system. According to ForsytheIDC development director Thomas McKinney, there is no risk of battery failure and one of the singles. Failure of the body battery will not cause the entire battery to be inoperable.

With the continuous maturity of lithium ion battery technology, the advantage of using lithium ion battery as UPS backup power supply is becoming more and more obvious, and the lithium ion battery construction scheme is also adopted by more and more enterprises. We see that lithium ion battery is becoming an indispensable new friend in the data center room step by step.

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