Plant?? - "An Old Dog with New Tricks"

Traditional and modern Plant?? cells are used to provide a high integrity source of standby power in the telecommunications industry because of their long and predictable life, stability on float charge, low maintenance and reliable performance. In addition, their high rate performance has made them suitable for generating station applications such as switch and circuit breaker tripping, together with diesel and gas turbine starting operations. In recent times, plant?? cells have found applications in the important and growing fields of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and solarvoltaic systems. Each new application has been accompanied, to some extent, by design modifications which have enabled the product to be closely matched to the requirements of the application. This evolution is reviewed in the light of the special requirements of certain applications, and with particular reference to power density. Today´s Plant?? Cells for UPS applications offer significant reductions in floor space requirements and some battery cost savings. Improvements in performance have not been achieved, however, to the detriment of life and reliability.