Thermal Study of Valve Regulated Lead A cid Batteries and Electro nics Chamber Us ed in Stand-Alone Street Lighting Ap plications

This paper presents a study on the heat generation of Valve-Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) batteries used in certain off-grid streetlighting applications from PoleCo, a Halifax based company. One goal of the project was to produce validated COMSOL models of the enclosure that holds these VRLA batteries. This model can then be used to investigate methods of reducing the temperature of the batteries based on environmental conditions. In order to provide this validation, COMSOL models of experiments were built and the results were compared to the associated experimental data. For models involving heat conduction in solids, the COMSOL models provided very accurate results. For models incorporating natural convection and the influence of additional electrical components, producing accurate COMSOL models proved more challenging.