Battery Backups Power consumption

[thedoc46]

Hi,

Just wondering if you have a battery backup unit running such as an APC UPS ES 500 running all day long, because i guess it must constantly be charging the battery inside, what do you reckon the annual cost is to you for having such a luxury?

The thing is at home I have three running at all times, cos of the surge protection.. I'd be interested in hearing how much this is costing me on Electricity...

 

[bremen1874]

As the question interested me I had a quick look at the APC website.

They don't appear to publish efficiency data for the ES range, but they do for the some of the others.

According to the graphs the efficiency gets better as the load goes up. They seem to start at around 50% efficiency at very low loads but get to 90% efficiency at somewhere between 20% and 30% load, from there the efficiency gradually increases to about 95%.

Given the above I don't think the extra electricity cost will be noticeable.

 

[EsaT]

Overcharging doesn't do good for any battery so if there's constant charging it's only very low power trickle charging but most probably there aren't any constant charging.
Also it being enclosed in solid plastic means it doesn't have really any cooling, which again necessitates low heat output and low power consumption.

According to the graphs the efficiency gets better as the load goes up. They seem to start at around 50% efficiency at very low loads but get to 90% efficiency at somewhere between 20% and 30% load, from there the efficiency gradually increases to about 95%.

Were's not dealing with double conversion/online UPS!