UPS and battery reference on the large scale

December 17, 2009 5:04 AM

I would like to learn more about large-scale UPS systems, particularly the battery strings used in traditional RBOC/Telco applications. These are the sort of beasts that use huge strings of 6V 220aH deep cycle batteries, or even large numbers of 2V 400aH batteries on very strong earthquake-resistant shelving wired up to create a 48V mega-battery. Can anyone point me to the most definitive reference materials on the subject?
posted by thewalrus to technology (4 answers total)

APC may have some free information for you. Call them up and tell them you are a business and that you are interested in buying some giant UPS hardware, and they will send you documents about their products (forever).
posted by gregr at 6:14 AM on December 17, 2009

One thing of note would be that phone equipment uses a -48v power source. SO the UPS system doesn't need to reconvert the battery power in order to power the equipment.
posted by gjc at 7:37 AM on December 17, 2009

Liebert also makes some serious UPS systems.

Both APC and Liebert also publish white papers on a variety of telco and data center topics. They're available on their sites and may be another good source of information regarding design principles.
posted by Hoenikker at 7:41 AM on December 17, 2009

In telco applications, much of this is either down to particular switching equipment manufacturers (e.g. Siemens, Alcatel, etc) or specialist - and often country-dependent - power system suppliers (e.g. a few Australian names come to mind). And the rest of the specs / info / design docs / etc will be locked up in internal telco engineering documents.

There's 2 basic types of power setups used by telcos - a centralised power room filled with enough rectifiers & batteries to power the whole exchange [CO in US-parlance], or distributed power systems consisting of smaller rectifiers and battery banks designed to power a few racks or a suite of equipment and distributed as-needed around the equipment floor. From the sound of your Q, you're interested in the former, though the latter is becoming more common.

FWIW, a few years ago when I was directly involved in maintaining this stuff, a 220Ah or 400Ah battery string was considered a small one. 3 or 4 banks (each 24 x 2.20V cells) of 220Ah batteries were used in small (500~1500 line) rural exchanges. Most suburban exchanges of a few thousand => 10-15,000 lines used multiple (3-6) 550Ah batteries. The biggest I ever dealt with myself used multiple banks of 2170Ah batteries in an exchange which drew upwards of 3000A @ 50V.

So the real question is "what do you want to know, exactly?". 'Cos the answer will differ greatly depending on style, size, type, etc.
posted by Pinback at 2:57 PM on December 17, 2009