Saft showcases advanced battery technology for telecoms

The ideal nickel battery technology for every telecom back-up requirement
Saft’s advanced nickel based batteries are purpose designed to deliver efficient and reliable
back-up power to ensure continuity of service for a wide variety of telecom applications,
including central offices, remote terminals and cellular base stations, for both on-grid or
stand-alone sites. A key advantage of Saft’s well established nickel battery technology is its predictable performance over a wide temperature range – this is particularly important as the majority of cabinet installations do not offer a temperature controlled environment. The robust construction and engineered electrolyte used in Ni-Cd batteries also means they do not suffer from ‘sudden death’.

Tel.X for demanding outdoor applications
Saft has developed Tel.X to provide an exceptionally long service life in both wireline and
wireless back-up power applications, especially for outdoor plants. Tel.X is ideal for
advanced telecom infrastructure such as cabinets and end-terminals in fibre-optic ‘tripleplay’ networks and cellular base stations and switching nodes that require long periods ofautonomy (from 1 to 10 hours).

Tel.X is both maintenance-free and compact, light and easy to install thanks to its simple
modular design that offers high volumic energy density, of up to 95 Wh/L, while weighing
around 30 per cent less than a conventional battery. Tel.X is designed for use in standard
19” and 23” racks and cabinets and less than 20 minutes is needed to install a typical 48 V
battery.

Sunica.plus for alternative energy and hybrid installations
Saft’s Sunica.plus batteries are fully adapted for telecom installations that rely on alternative energy sources, such as solar panels and wind-turbines, as well as hybrid applications where they work in parallel with diesel generators to ensure reliable power supplies. Their key feature is excellent chargeability that enables highly efficient operation under fluctuating charging conditions. They also offer good cycling capability to withstand daily and seasonal cycling at variable depths of discharge and state of charge.
An additional benefit of the Sunica.plus design is that it provides absolute reliability and the
capability to function in extreme temperatures (from –50°C to +70°C) while ensuring
continuous operation at any state of charge. It also features a low maintenance construction based on an optimized electrode design, combined with an internal gas recombination process that not only provides superior behaviour under unstable charging conditions, but also significantly extends the interval for topping-up with water. This is especially important in remote installations.

Conference paper for the Energy Storage Technical Program
Saft is delivering a conference paper in Session 2 of the Technical Program at INTELEC
2010 that is focusing on Energy Storage. Its paper – ‘Passing the 10-year Mark-a Multi-Year, Multi-Technology Analysis of Ni-Cd Field Data – describes Saft’s long-term practical experience in the installation and operation of nickel based batteries in OSP applications. As part of this analysis, some of the longest-serving battery strings were removed from field operation and returned for lab testing. The results of the evaluation demonstrate that nickel battery technology meets or exceeds performance expectations and continues to operate safely even after up to 10 years of field operation in uncontrolled environments.
In the same session, Saft will also outline its experience in Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries that
are emerging as an interesting alternative for new telecoms applications. This paper –
‘Lessons learned in the coordination of Lithium-ion battery charging and control’ – looks at
the different methods of Li-ion charging and control and describes the lessons learned by
Saft in non-standard rectifier configurations.