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Lead-acid batteries utilised in electrical substations release hydrogen and oxygen when these are charged. These gases could be dangerous and cause a risk of fire if they are not properly ventilated. Therefore, this research seeks to design and implement a network control panel for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system (HVACS). This is achieved by using a specific range of controllers, which have more than thirty loops of proportional, integral, and derivative (PID) control to achieve a cost-effective design. It performs the required function of extracting hydrogen and oxygen, maintaining the desired temperature of the battery storage room within recommended limits (i.e., 25 ± 1 °C tolerance) without compromising quality, as set out in the user requirement specification. The system control panel allows the user to access control parameters such as changing temperature set-points, fan-speed, sensor database, etc. It does this automatically and allows no human interface after all necessary settings and installation are completed. The hardware is configured to detect extreme hydrogen and oxygen gas content in the battery room and to ensure that the HVACS extracts the gas content to the outside environment. The system’s results show that the network control panel operates effectively as per the recommended system requirements. Therefore, the effective operation of the HVACS ensures sufficient gas ventilation, thus mitigating the risk of fire in a typical battery storage room. Furthermore, this also enhances battery lifespan because of regulated operating temperature, which is conducive to minimise the effect of sulfation in lead–acid batteries (LAB). The extraction of toxic gases, regulation of temperature, ensuring suitable humidity in UPS battery room is important as it provides longer operational service of equipment, thus reducing frequent maintenance in these rooms. This benefits the electricity supply industry and helps in saving for unplanned maintenance costs.

Lead-acid batteries are the most frequently used energy storage facilities for the provision of a backup supply of DC auxiliary systems in substations and power plants due to their long service life and high reliability. It is possible to define the load in these systems, therefore the IEEE 485 Standard can be used for the selection of batteries according to the conventional method of selection. Special attention is paid in the paper to the technical selection of a lead-acid battery, which depends on its operational reliability that decreases with battery aging. It is defined by the extent of maintenance during its service life. A cost analysis was also carried out, which took into consideration maintenance and procurement costs, as well as the costs of the related air conditioning that keeps the prescribed temperature and ventilates the battery room. The impact is shown of selecting a lead-acid battery on the battery room&rsquo, s operating safety when charging. The final selection of lead-acid battery is performed using an optimization algorithm of differential evolution. Using the optimization process, the new battery selection method includes the technical sizing criteria of the lead-acid battery, reliability of operation with maintenance, operational safety, and cost analysis. Two cases of selection of lead-acid batteries for the backup supply of a DC auxiliary system in a transmission substation are presented in the paper, where the input data were determined based on measurements in an existing substation. A comparison is made between the existing conventional and new lead-acid battery selection method based on optimization.

When charging most types of industrial lead-acid batteries, hydrogen gas is emitted. A large number of batteries, especially in relatively small areas/enclosures, and in the absence of an adequate ventilation system, may create an explosion hazard. This paper describes full scale tests, which demonstrate conditions that can occur in a battery room in the event of a ventilation system breakdown. Over the course of the tests, full scale hydrogen emission experiments were performed to study emission time and flammable cloud formation according to the assumed emission velocity. On this basis, the characteristics of dispersion of hydrogen in the battery room were obtained. The CFD model Fire Dynamic Simulator created by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was used for confirmation that the lack of ventilation in a battery room can be the cause of an explosive atmosphere developing, and leading to, a potential huge explosive hazard. It was demonstrated that different ventilation systems provide battery rooms with varying efficiencies of hydrogen removal. The most effective type appeared to be natural ventilation, which proved more effective than mechanical means.