A battery monitoring system for a power distribution substation.

Abstract

Batteries provide power to the protection and control equipment including relays, circuit breakers and other auxiliary devices. If the battery fails, then the substation is left unprotected thus battery maintenance is one of the most critical aspects to ensuring power to consumers when there is an outage or a system failure. Currently, battery maintenance programs consist of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems (SCADA) in addition to the monthly, quarterly, and annual manual measurements of cell and overall battery voltages, specific gravity, fluid level, connection resistance, and visual observations which are prone to human error. These methods also require the technical personnel to always be physically present at the substation if he or she wants to know about the status of the battery which makes it hard for him or her to know in case there are any abnormal conditions in the state of the batteries. This system utilizes the use of the temperature sensor, electrolyte level sensor, voltage sensor and a GSM modem which helps to notify the technical personnel about the status of the battery as regards the temperature, the electrolyte level and the voltage of the battery by sending an SMS. This system therefore, helps the technical personnel to monitor the performance of the batteries remotely without him being physically present at the substation.