Battery Enclosures (Cabinet or Rack) - Which is best for my batteries?

A battery cabinet is an enclosed cabinet used to house batteries for Inverter, UPS or other DC storage applications while a battery rack is an open frame (usually metallic) designed and fabricated for the same purpose. Generally, battery cabinet are preferred over battery racks because they provide better aesthetics with the cabinet usually designed to match the UPS in terms of outlook thereby giving a homogeneous outlay for the installation.

The above is an Eaton Battery Cabinet in line and match with an Eaton UPS. On the other, a battery rack is simply a rigid frame designed to carry the batteries, openly, and as such does not offer the same level of aesthetics with the battery assembly and the backup equipment(UPS, Inverter, Rectifier etc) often looking out of place when placed side by side.

Apart from aesthetics, the battery cabinet, if properly installed, offers better electrical isolation between the user and the high DC voltage usually present on batteries thereby providing a safer operating environment. For this reason (and combined with the aesthetic value derivable from the line and match configuration), battery cabinets are usually the preferred choice for data centres with moderate requirements in terms of backup time. On the other hand, battery racks are usually considered when extended backup times are required with the rack preferably located away from the application area. The choice of which is normally best is a function of so many factors. To help decide, we make a comparison between the available factors.

From the comparison above, it is clear that the choice of enclosure depends on application and specific considerations of the designer or user. As for me, I would gladly trade off aesthetics but cannot do same for overall safety. So, rack it is for me! I would rather design my enclosure as neat as possible with some form of transparent shielding or terminal caps to help with environmental isolation but for you, your choice depends solely on you!