Development of a back-up battery management system - A case study in petroleum development Oman

Back-up batteries are intended to meet the immediate requirements of the plant during emergencies or failures in the control supplies. Battery maintenance plays a very important role in running the plant continuously. There are approximately 1000 battery charges and uninterruptable power supplies (UPSs) in Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), each battery charger is attached to, on average, 84 cells. To allow effective monitoring of approximately 84,000 battery cells, and to reduce the delay introduced by the current manual monitoring regime, a novel computer based device has been implemented. This paper presents information on the sensors used in the system and on the interface used to inform operators of battery condition.