A Long Life Totally Maintenance Free Modular Battery for Telecommunications Standby Power

Abstract

Lead-acid storage batteries are used extensively in the Telecommunications industry as a source of standby power in the event that utility supplied electrical power, is for whatever reason, interrupted. Lead-acid batteries offer many advantages over alternative power sources, the most important one being low cost, reliable power. However, despite all of their inherent advantages, they do possess several unpleasant shortcomings, especially from the user's point of view. During charging, water contained in the electrolyte of lead acid batteries is electro-chemically broken down into hydrogen and oxygen gas which escapes into the atmosphere. This characteristic creates the need to periodically replace lost water, and to provide adequate means to remove the dangerous gasses that are released. Furthermore, as the gasses are emitted from the cells, acidic mist is carried with them, which causes corrosion of battery hardware, racks and any equipment which is located nearby to the battery. These idiosyncrasies have lead users of lead acid batteries to contain them in isolated rooms, separate from the telecommunications equipment which they support. Finally, conventional lead acid cells are installed on steel racks to make up a battery, which is a costly, labor intensive process. Also, the steel rack packaging concept requires a large amount of floor space leading to increased battery room sizes. A new lead acid battery, utilizing the principal of oxygen recombination, has been developed which solves all of the problems previously associated with conventional batteries, as listed above.