ABSTRACT
Battery-supplied direct current (DC) electricity has many applications and is widely used in household, commercial, and industrial operations—also commonly used for starting, lighting, and ignition of vehicles. Beyond their applications in vehicles other somewhat well-known applications of battery-supplied systems include providing electrical energy in industrial vehicles and emergency diesel generators, material handling equipment (forklifts), portable electric/electronic equipment, backup emergency power for light-packs, for hazard warning signal lights and flashlights, and as standby power supplies or uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) for computer systems. In some instances, they are used as the only source of power, while in others (as mentioned above) they are used as a secondary or standby power supply. In renewable energy applications, batteries are used to store electrical energy. A battery pack stores electricity produced by a solar electric system. Today batteries commonly are used in specialized applications such as plug-in battery electric vehicle (BEV) and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) rechargeable energy storage systems.
