meeting report

Battcon 2008 International Stationary Battery Conference

Marco Island, FL USA

May 5-7, 2008

• by George Brilmyer, Ph.D.
• Manager of Separator Development
• Daramic, LLC

This year’s Battcon International Battery Conference celebrated its 12th year with more than 450 in attendance at this annual event that supports the stationary battery industry. The Battcon Technical Committee did a fantastic job by selecting another great venue and an even better convention program which consisted of 21 papers by industry specialists and four panels of experts who debated some of the hottest topics in the industry.

I have highlighted some of the technical papers below, and the panel discussions had titles such as 1) Safety and Codes, 2) Business Overview: What is the Cost of Ownership?, 3) Environmental Impact, Recycling, Energy Use, Maintenance, and Being Green in General and 4) An open panel discussion called "Ask the Experts."

The conference itself covered a mixture of technical, recycling and legislative topics. The first paper by Chris Sedor of C&D Technologies was an enlightening discussion on "How the Lead Market Operates." Another topic that was addressed by two presenters was Hurricane Katrina. Curtis Ashton of Quest Communications wondered "Why is Hurricane Katrina affecting his battery lead times almost three years later?" and John Gagge of EnerSys discussed "Energy storage options to meet the FCC Katrina mandate."

The Battcon Trade Show was as big as ever with more than 50 industry suppliers from all over the globe. The conference was preceded by the annual golf outing and by three pre-conference battery-related seminars. The seminars were titled "Battery Basics," "Beyond the Fundamentals: Advanced Topics in Lead-Acid Batteries" and "Focus On: Battery Selection and Sizing Issues."

Next year’s Conference is scheduled to be held April 27-29, 2009, at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Conference Center in Orlando, Florida. Conference organizers are suggesting we register even earlier next year because this year registration had to be limited to ~460 people, leaving some interested parties frustrated and upset.

Why is Hurricane Katrina Affecting My Battery Lead Times Almost Three Years Later?

Since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the U.S. on August 29, 2005, many things have changed. This storm caused unbelievable destruction, the least of which was to communications companies’ facilities and communications services and this ultimately affected the area ’911’ system. Needless to say, the Federal Communications Commission was not pleased and established a panel that was chartered with preparing a report on the impact of the hurricane. The panel came back with a report on June 12, 2006, on ways to improve disaster preparedness and telephone network reliability. To make a long story short, the FCC has adopted a rule statingthat states that most central offices are to have 24 hours of backup power (batteries, fuel cells, flywheels, super capacitors, motor generators, etc.) while remote switch sites are to have eight hours of backup power. This rule was to take effect on August 31, 2007.

According to Curtis Ashton of Quest Communications, the result is that batteries will be in greater demand, and prices and lead-time will probably increase. His talk was informative and he mentioned the types of sites that this rule will apply and which sites it will not. He also discussed the FCC’s desire to ensure that the larger communications providers have proper backup for ’911’ traffic. Batteries will be required to be updated, tested and maintained regularly. This is all going to cost millions and millions. Ashton estimates that the wireless industry with its 170,000 cell sites will be hit with at least $400 million up front charges with about $100 million going toward batteries.

Energy Storage Options to Meet the FCC Katrina Mandate

In a presentation by John P. Gagge and David Schaffer of EnerSys, Gagge laid out our cost and maintenance options in terms of purchasing and maintaining an eight-hour battery to meet the FCC’s "Katrina Mandate." He pointed to the four possible solutions which are: 1) a generic lead-calcium VRLA block, 2) a pure-lead VRLA block, 3) a rack-mountable Li-ion system and 4) a hydrogen-powered proton exchange membrane fuel cell. Using the eight-hour backup time as a baseline, Gagge presented both initial and total cost of ownership for these options. The easiest way to explain Gagge’s data is to simply show you his 15-Year Cost of Ownership table (below).

As you can see, a telecom user has several options. Generic VRLA (lead-calcium grids) is the most expensive option simply due to the cost of replacing the battery several times over the 15-year period. Li-ion is the next most expensive option despite the claims of no A/C or maintenance. Gagge pointed out that despite its higher initial cost, a Li-ion battery is smaller, can run hotter (this is very debatable) and requires no maintenance (according to the manufacturer). Pure lead VRLA has a lower associated cost and is on the verge of proving itself in these applications. The lowest cost option is the PEM fuel cell which is hard to believe in my opinion. Gagge argues that PEMFC’s have a robust design and cost of ownership is the lowest. In the end I will add that the user must purchase a battery system that he/she is most comfortable with and will enable all parties involved to sleep safely and soundly.

Comparison of Positive Grid Alloys for Flooded Industrial Lead Acid Batteries

John Kim of C&D Technologies Inc. discussed the performance and maintenance characteristics of antimonial and calcium-lead alloys in stationary batteries. One of the main advantages of PbCa alloys is the low self-discharge rate. A typical PbCa battery will lose ~1.3% capacity per month at room temperature open circuit, while a PbSb or PbSbSe battery will tend to be three times higher in capacity loss at almost 4%. Another key difference in these grid options is their ’float’ characteristics. While lead-acid batteries that employ PbCa alloys tend to have a float current of ~100uA per Ah, PbSb-based batteries float at 250-300uA per AH. The PbSbSe alloys tend to suppress the float current a bit (compared to straight PbSb), but both PbSb and PbSbSe battery designs charge at higher float currents than PbCa and both types experience an increase in their float currents during life as the negative plate becomes poisoned with antimony.

Kim then went on to discuss battery life or "Longevity." His accelerated life tests (140F (60C)) are only just getting under way and the batteries are performing equally well. He concluded by stating that he basically prefers PbCa in these applications despite their reputation to be able to handle deeper and more frequent discharges.

Panel Discussion & Business Overview: What Is the Cost of Ownership?

The panel, including Glenn Alber, Dale Campbell, Dan McMenamin and Hal Taylor, managed to highlight some key points.

Reliability ‚ A telecommunications company must keep revenues "running through the pipe" and should the power totally fail, revenues stop, so this must be avoided.

Warranty ‚ Should the battery fail, the owner will most likely insist on a full replacement.

Space ‚ Floor space used by batteries is floor space that could be used by revenue-producing telecom-munications equipment. A string of wet cells consumes roughly 144 square feet while four strings of VRLA cells can take as little as 65 square feet of floor space. One comment was that if space is not an issue (but it usually is), then flooded lead-acid is the choice.

Redundancy ‚ Consider four to five strings of VRLA batteries vs. one large string of flooded cells. This is a trade-off that must be thoroughly considered.

Monitoring ‚ Cell monitoring is becoming more important and some telecom companies monitor all cells in an attempt to predict battery life and failure.

Cost ‚ It would appear that the general opinion is that VRLA batteries are overall lower cost than flooded cells.

Failed cells ‚ They recommend purchasing extra cells and floating them separately just in case one cell is needed as a replacement later in life. Should a cell need to be replaced, one should always make certain that the new cell is fully charged before being placed into the string. An individual cell with a low state-of-charge will never reach full charge if placed into a fully charged string.

Demystifying Battery Recycling

J. Allen Byrne of Interstate PowerCare gave an entertaining presentation and joked about a recent lead shipment that was rejected by the smelter because there were too many toys in the lead! Besides his jokes he did give us some useful information. Byrne pointed out that ~97% of the lead used for lead-acid batteries is recycled and used in new lead-acid batteries. This is up considerably from 86% in 1987. He then put things in perspective by reporting other details of recycled materials such as aluminum (55%), paper (45%), glass (26%) and tires (26%). He presented much more information than I can even begin to report here but one comment that hit home what that in the last four years lead prices are up from $0.35 per pound to ~$1.50 which is an increase of 400%!

Understanding Lithium-Ion Technology

Jim McDowell of Saft America Inc. began by stating that there are three issues that he wanted to discuss related to Li-ion technology and they are safety!, safety! and safety! Yes, McDowell feels that at this time in the life of Li-ion technology that safety is key.

He began by dissecting the Li-ion cell in terms of the positive active material, negative active material and electrolyte. McDowell noted that the most widely used positive active material is LiCoO2 and this material just happens to have one major down-side which is that it has the highest potential of resulting in a fire. This active material was in all the laptop battery recalls of 2006 and beyond. He discussed overcharging and mentioned that LiMnO2 was safer than LiCoO2 but the newly developed Fe Phosphate is safest.

McDowell said that over-heating was also a potential issue with Li-ion battery safety because temperatures in excess of about 110C adversely affect the negative electrode by breaking down the protective layer referred to as the Solid Electrolyte Interface (aka SEI).

"Ask the Experts" Panel Discussion: Environmental Impact, Recycling, Energy Use, Maintenance, and Being Green in General

The panel, including Curtis Ashton, Garth Corey, David Putnam and Steve Vechy, presented some very interesting facts related to the U.S. Energy Star Program. It was stated that in 2006, data centers in the U.S. consumed roughly 60 billion KWHr which amounted to ~1.5% of the total U.S. energy consumption. Approximately 50% of this energy is simply used to cool the data centers due to the heat generated by the computing equipment. To put this in perspective, 60 billion KWHr is the same amount of energy that would be consumed by ~5.8 million homes in a year! He also noted that this is anticipated to double by the year 2011 and would therefore necessitate that 10 new power generating plants be built.

The panel commented that we should be considering more installed batteries for peak shaving and spinning reserve. The U.S. Department of Energy apparently has a minimal budget for energy storage despite the apparent need for projects. We all remember the "Chino" project where Southern California Edison installed a 40MWHr flooded lead-acid battery with great success. Many in the audience were not aware of the ongoing project in Fairbanks, Alaska, where a 27MWHr NiCad battery was recently installed and designed to handle 46MW load spikes on a 15-minute basis. The state of West Virginia apparently has a 1MW x 7 hours sodium sulfur (NaS) battery being designed to support and defer the installation of new high-voltage power transmission lines.

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