Cellwatch Frontier

Monitor. Detect. Resolve.

Cellwatch Frontier is a battery monitoring solution designed for critical DC power systems and optimized for infrastructural applications. This makes it ideal for operations that must tend with remote site locations, heavy regulation, Zone 1 hazardous environments, SCADA platforms, or frequent manual service.

Built On a Legacy of Trust

Cellwatch Frontier is based on Cellwatch Battery Monitoring, which has been the trusted first choice of mission-critical institutions, business, and governments for over 30 years.Frontier builds on that proven foundation with durable field hardware, hardened measurement methods, and an architecture designed to operate reliably across electrically demanding environments and long-life deployments.

1st to build a fully modular battery monitoring system.

1stto build a scalable system.

1st to introduce daily battery monitoring.

1st to provide a fiber-optic interconnect system

1stto develop a self-addressable system.

1st to automate ohmic value setting.

Proven at Scale in Mission-Critical Environments

Cellwatch systems are trusted worldwide to monitor mission-critical power systems. Since release, our systems have monitoredover 2 million batteries and 10 million cells worldwide

Countries Cellwatch Services

Customers trust Cellwatch Frontier for the enhanced visibility, accuracy, and reliability it provides as well as for its breakout solutions for critical DC power systems in remote sites and hazardous environments.

NERC Compliance

Utility substations are required to demonstrate compliance with standard practices set by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). This entails monitoring battery voltage, electrolytes, ohmic value, discharge, and performance while submitting multiple reports yearly. Without a platform optimized for NERC compliance, this often involves frequent site visits and manual data collection.

Automated Compliance

By automating daily monitoring, NERC reporting, and data exportation, Cellwatch Frontier helps operators ensure compliance with NERC-005-06 standards without the need for onsite visits or time-intensive manual reporting.

Battery Monitoring in Hazardous Environments

In critical facilities with inherent incendiary risk, such as those used for power generation, battery failures and thermal events are unacceptable, and operators need a way to monitor battery conditions at all times in order to minimize explosive risk. However, traditional approaches to monitoring require personnel to enter hazardous zones frequently to perform manual checks and diagnostics, even when no maintenance is required.

The Cellwatch Frontier system is specifically designed to operate safely and effectively in Zone 1 and 2 hazardous environments without a bulky enclosure.

Our IECEx-Certified Data Collection Module (DCM) is installed inside the hazardous zone. Each DCM monitors up to four cells, is small enough to mount on a DIN-rail, and comes with optional temparature probes that come certified with the unit.

DCMs, temperature probes, and current transducers are semi-permanently installed in the hazardous zones.

The Frontier Unit lives in the safe zone, handles data logging, processing, reporting, and communicates with the DCMs and current transducers through fiber optic cable, keeping the system optically isolated and intrinsically safe.

Measure battery status continually during charging and discharging phases.

Cellwatch Frontier monitors critical battery health indicators continuously and trending indicators daily to identify issues at the cell level and string level before they manifest as a battery failure.

Our proactive monitoring solution allows technicians to eliminate battery system vulnerabilities by replacing failing batteries before a compromise. This approach reduces both operational risk and personnel risk in hazardous sites by enabling to only breach Zone 1 environments during a confirmed maintenance event while improving response time for critical maintenance tasks.

Measure battery status continually during charging and discharging phases.

Cellwatch Frontier monitors critcal battery health indicators continuously and trending indicators daily to identify issues at the cell level and string level before they manifest as a battery failure.

Our proactive monitoring solution allows technicians to eliminate battery system vulnerabilities by replacing failing batteries before a compromise. This approach reduces both operational risk and personnel risk in hazardous sites by enabling to only breach Zone 1 environments during a confirmed maintenance event while improving response time for critical maintenance tasks.

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Lower Risk

Better Maintenance Decisions

Cellwatch Frontier enables continuous visibility into battery systems by tracking internal resistance, voltage, current, temperature, strap resistance, and AC ripple.

The system provides critical insights into performance that help technicians synthesize performance information in multiple dimensions, establish trends, and track divergent cell behavior that predicts failures early.

These insights can be used strategically to identify maintenance priorities at the level of individual cells before failures become critical, so technicians can preemptively prepare for replacements and repairs.

NERC Reporting

Automates NERC PRC-005 battery reporting with daily diagnostics, time-stamped event logs, and SCADA integration via Modbus, SNMP, and DNP3. Provides audit-ready records and actionable alarms across remote sites, reducing visits and paperwork for fleets and substations.

Electrolyte Level Monitoring

Adds continuous electrolyte-level monitoring to DC battery strings. Level inputs track trends over time and identify abnormal loss or low thresholds early, reducing dry-out risk. Alerts and history are routed through SCADA, including voltage, resistance, and temperature data across sites.

Terminal Connection Resistance

Trends terminal connection resistance at each jar to reveal loose or corroded posts. Rising contact resistance generates heat under load, weakening the string and risking hot spots. Early alarms guide re-torque or cleaning before performance drops or hardware damage occurs.

Strap Resistance

The system measures inter-cell and inter-tier strap resistance with micro-ohm accuracy every 24 hours. Increases show loose or improperly torqued straps. Trends and alarms allow quick corrections before heat buildup and the string becomes unstable in-service environments.

Battery Monitoring

Provides always-on, per-cell monitoring of voltage, internal resistance, temperature, and strap connections with fiber-isolated DCMs and discharge capture. Daily automated diagnostics detect early failure trends and send alarms to BMS and SCADA in real time across sites.

Fewer site visits

Better Prepared Dispatch

Centralize battery monitoring on a global scale. Our proprietary software solution Cellwatch Central allows us to securely consolidate battery health data from multiple installations or locations into a single platform, enabling users to maintain visibility across their entire deployment and plan service commitments around the actual needs of the equipment.

Rather than an “enter to diagnose” workflow in which technicians must be onsite to diagnose battery issues and then return to resolve them, the Frontier platform supports an “enter to resolve” workflow by targeting and addressing issues as they occur.

This significantly reduces the frequency of technician deployment to and from remote or hazardous locations, minimizing the associated costs, risks, and labor.

Deployment Flexibility

Optimized for regulated, remote, and hazardous installations

Cellwatch Frontier is specifically optimized for situations in which traditional battery monitoring is a challenge, including regulated, remote, and hazardous environments such as those involved in utility power, oil & gas, and telecom operations.

Remote

Cellwatch Frontier supports native DNP3 integration for streamlined communication with SCADA systems. Paired with our data consolidating software Cellwatch Central, users can securely bring data information from multiple locations and installations into a single monitoring platform.

Regulated

Frontier systems collect and submit automatic reports customized to the data content, format, compliance regulations, and frequency demanded by the application. These records are logged securely and can integrate with system records to make audits simple and comprehensive. This greatly reduces the administrative tasks assigned to technicians in heavily regulated applications, such as those requiring NERC compliance.

Hazardous

Cellwatch Frontier also features an IECEx-rated data collection module that is certified for operation in Zone 1 and 2 environments. The small, low-profile device can be easily mounted on a rack or wall to begin monitoring without hands-on operation or maintenance requirements, helping technicians significantly limit time spent in hazardous zones.

Product Specifications & Components

Monitoring Architecture

Cellwatch Frontier is optimized for modular, flexible, and easily scalable deployment. The monitoring platform is chemistry agnostic and can monitor different systems and battery types to provide a centralized report of battery health across your entire operation.

Our system integrates seamlessly with building management systems (BMS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) platforms using open protocols. It natively supports Modbus RTU/TCP IP and SNMP. Alarm thresholds, polling intervals, and output triggers are fully customizable.

Ideal for operations involving hazardous environments and remote sites, the Cellwatch Frontier system is designed with IECEx-rated modules and specific functionality for automating remote monitoring.

System Components

Frontier Unit

Control UnitSystem management consolidating data, generating reports, and bridging connection to iBMU.

DCM

Data Collection ModulesSolid state, optically isolated, fiber optic cell-monitoring units.

IECEx Units

Ex-Rated ProductsBattery monitoring modules and sensors designed for hazardous environments and certified to IECEx standards.

Probes

Temperature and CurrentIntegrated and certified non-invasive battery monitoring sensors.

Frontier Unit

The Frontier Unit serves as the executive nucleus of the Cellwatch Frontier platform, tracking internal resistance, voltage, current, temperature, strap resistance, and ripple to deliver complete visibility into battery health and meet regulatory compliance requirements.

Designed for applications on utility substations and other mission-critical sites, the Frontier Unit supports native DNP3 integration, seamlessly communicating directly with SCADA systems without any converters or middleware.

With capacity for managing up to 64 DCMs and 256 battery cells per unit, Frontier is engineered for scale and long service life. It also includes functionality for automating data collection and reporting for NERC regulatory compliance.

Data Collection Modules

Mounted directly on battery containers, each Data Collection Module (DCM) measures voltage,internal resistance (ohmic value), temperature, and strap resistance of the connected cell(s).

Each DCM is powered by the monitored cells and communicates over afiber optic daisy loop, which provides electrical isolation and eliminates termination and addressing steps.

Our system offers DCM models optimized for high voltage, low voltage, ripple voltage, and short strings.

DCM Specification Matrix

IECEx Products

Purpose-built for battery monitoring in Zone 1 and Zone 2 hazardous environments, the DCM6-L-IECEx Data Collection Module meets compliance standards for IECEx, ATEX, and UKEX, making it ideal for applications involving hydrogen or equivalent IIC gas groups. Through a semi-permanently installed controller, the module provides high-resolution jar-level measurements and trending data for voltage, ohmic value, and temperature via a highly-effective Graphical User Interface with integrated web server and relays the data to controller and integration layer in a non-hazardous area.

Without an obtrusive enclosure, the DCM6-L-IECEx is optimally sized for rack or wall mount and strategically designed to minimize time spent in hazardous zones. It facilitates quick and easy set-up via a fiber optic loop and can be removed without opening battery connections to support simplified battery replacement workflows. Once installed, it operates with little to no maintenance or calibration requirements.

Accessory Components

Cellwatch Frontier is a modular system that is customized to suit each application. In addition to our core modules, we offer a suite of optional and supporting equipment to provide added value in line with your specific concerns and limitations. Our most popular add-ons include:

Current Transducers

Clamp over string wiring to measure discharge, recharge, and float current.

Temperature Transducers

Track ambient and pilot cell temperatures to support thermal risk analysis.

Contact us to learn more about how our accessory products can augment your application.

Centralized Monitoring

Secure Global Visibility

Cellwatch Central utilizes Cellwatch engineering to deliver a tailored monitoring solution for applications involving complex data analysis and battery monitoring requirements.

Ideal for operations with multiple installation sites, the platform consolidates extensive volumes of battery data and performance information into a single centralized system. It supports data collection for battery performance across over 50,000 jars and enables large organizations to manage battery types, installation data, and maintenance events via a unified interface.

Streamlined monitoring for dispersed deployments

Data collection across over 50,000 jars

Critical insights for data-driven decision-making

Multiple user authentications for administration, central, and observation

Documentation and Resources

Frontier Quick Start Guide

Frontier For Utilities

Frontier For Telecom

Frontier For Hazardous Environments

IECEx Battery Monitoring Overview

Frontier User Manual