ABB Improves Reliability with Integritas Battery Charger

Date
10/13/2020

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New industrial battery charger offers “single-charger” redundancy in a modular, compact, wall-mounted footprint.

In industrial and utility applications, uptime is often one of the most critical aspects of operations – right after safety. ABB is helping to ensure reliable, efficient power in these mission critical industries with its new Integritas industrial battery charger. The wall-mounted system features switch-mode rectifier technology that provides transformer-less, efficient power conversion in a compact footprint – providing true N+1 or N+N redundancy in a single battery charger.

ABB’s versatile industrial battery charger supports the critical DC power and battery charging needs of various rigorous industrial applications – from utilities and manufacturing to pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals. It provides up to 18 kilowatts (kW) of output power at 125 volts DC (VDC) from a direct, three-phase, 480-volt AC (VAC) input feed.

Improved Battery Charger Management with New Nebula Controller

The industrial battery charger is the first ABB solution to implement the company’s new Nebula controller, which takes system monitoring, maintenance, and security to a new level compared to previous controllers. The Nebula controller makes accessing and reviewing critical information simple; both locally and remote. Located on the front of the battery charger is a seven-inch color touchscreen that can display information including, but not limited to, active performance information, alarms, and status updates on the input and output. In addition, the Nebula controller utilizes Distributed Network Protocol 3 (DNP3)-based communications, allowing the battery status to be networked with plant-wide distributed control systems (DCS) or supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.

Key Features of the Integritas Industrial Battery Charger

The Integritas industrial battery charger presents several key features and performance benefits, including:

  • Replacing two redundant silicon-controlled rectifier-based chargers with a one multiple-rectifier unit to provide “single-charger” redundancy.  

  • Switch-mode rectifier technology for improved power efficiencies of up to 95.7% at 50 to 100% load.

  • A compact, wall-mount design that is up to 40% smaller than comparable 40-amp silicon-controlled rectifier chargers.

  • Accommodating a wide input voltage range of between 85-530 VAC.

  • Robust operating temperature range between -40 and +75 degrees Celsius.  

Enhanced Charger Capability and Redundancy with ABB’s Switch-Mode Rectifiers

The Integritas industrial battery charger features another new product specifically designed for industrial applications – the IP040H3R125ATEZ switch-mode rectifier. The new industrial rectifier can convert 480 VAC directly to 125 VDC without the need for a step-down transformer. In addition, when installed in a 19-inch cabinet frame, the IP040 industrial rectifiers can provide 150 amps of output current in a 14-by-17-by-28-inch space – offering significant size savings for power system designers.

Utilizing switch-mode rectifier technology helps the industrial battery charger unleash even more performance and design benefits. The rectifiers operate at a higher switching frequency (90-270 KHz) than conventional silicon-controlled rectifiers, which typically operate in the 45-65 Hz range. This technology also helps to reduce the size and weight of the power conversion components when compared to comparable silicon-controlled rectifier-based battery chargers. AC-to-DC conversion is also more efficient with switch-mode rectifiers, creating a lower thermal impact, higher power efficiency of up to 95.7 percent, and improving the life cycle of the unit.

The modular design of the Integritas industrial battery charger allows for critical components to be “hot swapped” for easier repair or replacement, keeping the charging load up during maintenance or replacements and reducing overall maintenance costs.

For more information about the Integritas industrial battery charger, Nebula controller, or IP040 rectifier, visit the ABB website.

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