Another essential factor for the optimum control and maintenance of electrochemical storage facilities is to provide the plant with a system for processing and interpreting data, issuing reports and managing alarms, both for the technical teams in charge and for customers.
The requirements for periodic maintenance for energy storage products should be identified by the OEM (IEEE 2010). In settings where predictive analytics maintenance is economical, guidance should also be available from the manufacturer that identifies methodologies for assessing when a product may be approaching a failure mode.
Build PV and storage systems to relevant standards, such as IEEE 937: Recommended Practice for Installation and Maintenance of Lead-Acid Batteries for Photovoltaic (PV) Systems (IEEE 2007).
There are many codes and standards relating to safety of stationary energy storage at the local, national, and international levels by UL, NFPA (NEC, 70E), ANSI, CSA, and IEC, among others.
For example, demand charge management through a PV plus storage system dictates the strategy for when to discharge the battery and when to charge it. In these situations, the control algorithm will be more complicated and likely call for some degree of forecasting and monitoring PV power, load profiles, and demand charges.
Consult equipment manuals for maintenance activities and intervals as required by the manufacturer. This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at