Individual-cell monitoring system in energy backup banks

This work presents the characteristics of a low-cost individual-cell monitoring system suitable for battery-based backup systems. The system is being developed at the Department of Control and Instrumentation (GCI), Institute of Electrical Research (IIE), Mexico. The system has three main components: a central unit that stores, analyses and presents cells data, a data concentrator module that gathers data and sends it to the central unit and multiple data acquisition modules, one for each monitored cell. The concentrator can also work as a low-cost charge-controller for lead-acid batteries connected to photovoltaic panels. This paper also presents results from the field tests applied to the charge controller.