Battery room

A battery room is a room in a facility used to house batteries for backup or uninterruptible power systems. Battery rooms are found in telecommunication central offices, and to provide standby power to computing equipment in datacenters. Batteries provide direct current (DC) electricity, which may be used directly by some types of equipment, or which may be converted to alternating current (AC) by uninterruptible power supply (UPS) equipment. The batteries may provide power for minutes, hours or days depending on the electrical system design, although most commonly the batteries power the UPS during brief electric utility outages lasting only seconds.

Battery rooms were used to segregate the fumes and corrosive chemicals of wet cell batteries (often lead–acid) from the operating equipment; a separate room also allowed better control of temperature and ventilation for the batteries. In 1890 the Western Union central telegraph office in New York City had 20,000 wet cells, mostly primary zinc-copper type, in use.

Telephone system central offices contain large battery systems to provide power for customer telephones, telephone switches, and related apparatus. Terrestrial microwave links, cellular telephone sites, fibre optic apparatus and satellite communications facilities also have standby battery systems, which may be large enough to occupy a separate room in the building. In normal operation power from the local commercial utility operates telecommunication equipment, and batteries provide power if the normal supply is interrupted. These can be sized for the expected full duration of an interruption, or may be required only to provide power while a standby generator set or other emergency power supply is started.

Batteries often used in battery rooms are the flooded lead-acid battery, the valve regulated lead-acid battery or the nickel–cadmium battery. Batteries are installed in groups. Several batteries are wired together in a series circuit forming a group providing DC electric power at 12, 24, 48 or 60 volts (or higher). Usually there are two or more groups of series-connected batteries. These groups of batteries are connected in a parallel circuit. This arrangement allows an individual group of batteries to be taken offline for service or replacement without compromising the availability of uninterruptible power. Generally, the larger the battery room's electrical capacity, the larger the size of each individual battery and the higher the room's DC voltage.

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