Why UPS’s batteries gets damaged over the time?
In: Technology
All batteries wear out over time. They are bags of chemicals and those chemicals degrade. Recharging is supposed to reverse the chemical process that draining the battery produces, but it’s never a perfect reversal to get to the exact same chemical state each time.
UPSs can be especially hard because often the power demand is quite high, in terms of the number of amps/watts demanded out of the battery. That can be hard on the battery and it may not last as long as if it were under lower loads.
In most situations a UPS isn’t meant to have the battery drained, but just to hold the power long enough for either a clean shutdown of the systems, or to hold out for a backup power source (like a generator) to kick in and take over providing power. If you actually let the battery drain, you’re doing it wrong.
A lead acid battery (in most UPS’s) store electrical energy as a chemical potential. As in, chemical reaction inside the battery creates free electrons (electricity) which you then use. When we want to store electricity, we reverse the process (add electrons) and the battery regenerates a certain amount of chemical potential again.
This process isn’t perfect, the chemical reaction in both direction has losses (inefficiencies) and degradation of the chemicals themselves.
Over time, this cycling reduces the battery to an ineffective state and requires replacement.
Also the way they are used is just rough in general. It’s hard on most batteries to be drained all the way and it’s hard on batteries to keep them fully charged all the time without being used.
There are exceptions for different chemistries but in general it’s best to take deep cycle batteries to 50% state of charge and then charge fully.
Lithium ion batteries are different. Those are generally best held between 20%-80%
Latest Answers