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Batteries for Year Round Polar Programs

Rechargeable batteries:

Rechargeable batteries are used for projects using solar and/or wind charging systems. PASSCAL's Polar Group has used SunXtender AGM batteries by Concord succesfully for many deployments. These batteries, aside from being reliable, offer several advantages. They are sealed and non-spillable, which makes then safer and easier to handle in the field; they have a low self discharge rate, which is important for a low power system, with extended periods of time between charges (arctic conditions); and they are exempt of DOT HazMat requirements (49 CFR Section 173.159) provided that they are shipped in their original package or in a package that satisfies the requirements of 49 CFR 173.159(d).

PASSCAL's Polar Group recommends the SunXtender PVX-420T for short term deployments, and the PVX-1040T for multiyear projects. There are a variety of battery sizes available that can satisfy the capacity requirements for individual projects. When designing a charging system for a field project, one has to take into account the reduced capacity of a battery due to cold temperature.

Primary Batteries:

PASSCAL's Polar station design relies on primary batteries to power the station during the cold, dark winter months. Our current battery of choice for these extreme environments is a Lithium Thionyl Chloride battery by Tadiran. The Lithium Thionyl Chloried is an ideal battery for these extreme cold and remote deployments for several reasons including: a very high energy density (compared to other types of batteries); a very low self discharge; and the ability to operate at very low temperature (-55C). In addition to Lithium batteries, the engineered battery packs also contain Hybrid Layer Capacitors (HLC) to provide power during high current demands, for example when the DAS dumps data to a storage device. 

Attachments

Name Date Size
HLC-1550A-2.pdf 03/30/09 203KB
Sun_Xtender_Battery_Technical_Manual.pdf 03/30/09 1.37MB
sunextenderbatterysizingtips-1.pdf 03/30/09 85KB