We have a lot of cell towers. The diesel generator in each site runs for a long time due to frequent power failures. My plan to reduce diesel consumption is to avail the power plant batteries to the maximum extent possible as the cost of running generator during power failure is three to four times compared to power plant battery emergency supply. So if power plant battery supply is used to the extent possible during power failure instead of generator supply, the saving due to reduction in diesel fuel may be enough for replacement worn out batteries used in that way. The power plant batteries are of valve regulated type. Are their charge and discharge cycle suitable for any pay back period? Thanks.
Interesting concept. Some years back (~15 years) ATT Canada did a research project concerning powering remote sites. The cost of delivering fuel to the remote sites was horribly expensive. The generaor was sized for the high peak loading and ran lightly loaded for most of the time. There were problems with wet stacking and poor efficiency.
The project installed a battery bank with sufficient capacity for 24 hours (discharge to 50% DoD). The battery charger was sized to fully load the generator and recharge the batteries in 4 hours. So, state of charge controls monitor the batteries and when they hit 50%, the gen started and the charger hit the batteries as hard as it could with out over heating the batteries - about once a day.
The efficiency gained from running the gen flatout saved enough fuel the system paid for the new batteries in one year.
They had some trouble with the charging algolrithm at first. The batteries were not topping off and wer left a bit less than full charge. And the battery capacity dropped over time. They fixed the algolrithm and that issue went away - small increase in fuel consumption.
I think you could apply this to your installations. For example (just an example - I don't know if the numbers are good or not):
Size the batteries, for 50% state-of-charge, to cover 90% of your outages (1 day to 3 days maybe - I don't know). If at 50% SOC, the power is not back on, start the gen. Size the gen (and charger) for a 12 hour recharge plus required plant loads. As long as you don't go below 50%, you won't hurt the batteries. It will take some juggling to make the best use of the existing equipment.
Excellent science fair project. Once you put together a good proposal, the management will come up with the money. Let us know how it goes.
ice