At this year’s Battcon conference, we were pleased to present our highly trusted and reliable Guardian and Aspiro DC power families. Conversations were a plenty about the reliability and technology of power systems and how lithium-ion batteries are becoming favored for utility and telecom applications compared to lead-acid batteries. Lithium-ion chemistry has a distinct advantage over lead-acid as it offers batteries with higher energy densities and longer lifetimes that are smaller and significantly lighter in weight.
Our Guardian and Aspiro product lines can operate with a variety of battery chemistries — including lithium-ion, like the new Guardian Lithium batteries from Green Cubes — to provide clean, reliable, safe DC power when AC grid power is lost. Each Guardian battery contains an integrated Battery Management System (BMS), charging electronics, and proprietary Energy Balancing Technology (EBT) that enables active current control, load sharing and State of Charge balancing across connected units. This is a significant advantage for users as lead-acid battery monitoring systems typically must be purchased from a third party and integrated into their battery installation.
All Guardian batteries have active thermal management and feature Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) or Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) chemistries to accommodate multiple utility and telecom applications. Having the BMS built into the batteries allows considerable cost saving for operators. Also, with increasingly strict requirements from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the integrated battery monitoring system can reduce battery maintenance and testing that technicians have to perform, lowering labor and maintenance costs. In addition, UNIPOWER’s GCC controller with PowCom™ software provides immediate access to performance and alarm information. This provides the operator with a single point where they can access and control their DC power plant remotely from anywhere and monitor the rectification and energy storage performance.
Battcon was a great validation of our high-efficiency DC power systems with lithium batteries that provide the highest efficiency level with a wide operating temperature and input voltage range for mission-critical applications.
