Battery charging is a complex electrochemical process, in which the discharged electric energy must be replenished from the electric network. The quality of the charging process is critical to the health and longevity of batteries. As a result, battery chargers play a key role in the life and performance of today’s industrial batteries.

A battery charger is an electrical/electronic device that converts the incoming AC line voltage into a regulated DC voltage to meet the charging needs of the respective battery (see Fig. 1).

Although today’s industrial battery charging market is dominated by Ferro resonant and SCR type chargers, which have been in existence for many years, new high frequency battery charging technologies is making headways into the industrial battery charger markets. This isdue to the higher efficiencies and smaller sizes and weights that a high frequency charger offersover Ferro resonant and SCR types.

The selection of the appropriate charger technology depends mainly on the battery requirements and the applications needs. Although ferroresonant and SCR chargers have been in existence for many years and are quite durable and reliable, the performance benefits of high frequency battery chargers can outweigh those of ferroresonant and SCR types.

Table 1 summarizes the main features, benefits, and limitations of the three charger types.

Typical Energy Costs and Savings:

Consider a typical application utilizing a 36V, 1000Ahr battery operating for two shifts per day with daily EBU usage of 2.0 (two shifts with 80% DOD in each shift). The table below summarizesthe energy costs of a ferro, SCR, typically HF chargers.