Maintenance of energy storage and conversion systems: how to structure safe and reliable maintenance?

Energy storage and conversion systems are becoming standard in industrial environments that demand high levels of safety, reliability and availability. Industrial maintenance cannot be approached in isolation or reactively. It requires rigorous structuring of assets, interventions and data to control operational risks and ensure long-term performance of installations.

How to identify and prioritize critical assets of energy storage and conversion systems?

Identify high-impact assets

For a maintenance manager, it is essential to distinguish assets whose failure leads to serious consequences:

• Safety of the installation : components that, if they fail, can create physical hazards (fires, gas leaks, electrical risks or overpressure) should be prioritized.
• Service continuity : assets whose stoppage disrupts the overall system (main battery bank, BMS, converters, hydrogen conversion units) must be classified with high criticality levels.
• Energy performance : some elements may not immediately affect safety but strongly influence overall efficiency (cooling systems, measurement sensors or control modules).

For battery storage systems, regular inspections of modules, their connections and their management systems are recommended to prevent premature degradation or thermal incidents.

Examples of critical assets

Here are categories of assets that require special attention:

• Batteries and battery management systems (BMS) : they regulate charge/discharge cycles and monitor key parameters such as voltage, current and temperature. Their proper functioning directly affects battery safety and lifespan.
• Electrolyzers and hydrogen conversion units : in hydrogen installations, these units manage energy production and conversion. Their failure can cause leaks or significant efficiency losses.
• Gas compressors and compression systems : compression stations (for hydrogen or compressed air, for example) are mechanical components subjected to heavy loads. Preventive maintenance helps reduce the risk of overpressure or sudden stoppage.
• Control and cooling systems : devices that manage thermal regulation directly influence the performance and longevity of batteries and electrochemical systems.

Define appropriate criticality levels

Implementing a criticality matrix relies on measurable criteria:

• Impact on safety : assess the potential for human or material harm in case of failure.
• Effect on system availability : analyze downtime and production losses associated with a failure.
• Cost associated with failures : consider not only repair costs but also indirect costs related to stoppages or decommissioning of an asset.

To structure this assessment, teams generally rely on recognized ranking methods, such as the FMEA or multi-criteria criticality analyses. These approaches help identify assets whose failure modes present the highest risks, without multiplying complex analyses across the entire fleet.

Structure the tree and prioritization via the CMMS

A robust computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) provides a structured base to map assets:

• Asset hierarchy : the CMMS allows creating a logical tree of assets, subassemblies and components, making it easier to visualize dependencies and the most exposed areas.
• Classification by criticality : managers can assign criticality levels to each asset to prioritize interventions, inspections and regulatory checks.
• Automated scheduling : the CMMS handles scheduling of periodic actions according to defined criticality levels, reducing the risk of omissions and improving the maintenance team’s responsiveness.

This approach promotes effective resource allocation and better anticipation of planned downtime, while strengthening the overall system safety.

How to structure maintenance plans adapted to the constraints of energy storage and conversion?

Define maintenance types according to operational constraints

An effective structure relies on a combination of maintenance types tailored to the context:

Systematic preventive maintenance
This type of upkeep is based on fixed periodicities (calendar, number of cycles or operating hours) to reduce the risk of failure before it occurs. For energy storage systems, regular inspections of batteries, thermal systems or electrical connections help stabilize performance and limit known failures.

Condition-based maintenance
This maintenance is triggered according to measurable parameters (temperature, pressure, vibration, charge/discharge, etc.). In modern technologies such as battery or hydrogen storage, this approach is relevant because it triggers actions only when certain thresholds are reached, avoiding unnecessary interventions while ensuring reliability.

Regulatory inspections
For hydrogen installations or compression stations, regular inspections that comply with external standards (for example from industrial codes or HSE standards) must be integrated into maintenance plans, with defined periodicities and levels of detail.

Integrate constraints specific to storage and conversion technologies

Maintenance plans must translate the technical and regulatory constraints of these installations into simple, operational rules.

• Consider the equipment operating cycles
  Maintenance plans should include:
  • checks related to usage cycles,
  • regular verifications of thermal management systems,
  • frequencies adapted to actual operating conditions.

• Include safety and HSE requirements in maintenance plans
  Some systems expose specific risks; maintenance plans should formalize:
  • clearly defined lockout/tagout procedures,
  • qualification requirements for technicians,
  • pre-commissioning checks integrated into maintenance routines.

• Structure documentation and regulatory compliance

Maintenance plans must also meet traceability and compliance requirements:

• standardized intervention sheets and checklists,
• requirements related to regulatory inspections.

Structure your maintenance plans with a CMMS

The CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) is the organizational tool that enables effective deployment and tracking of maintenance plans:

Process centralization
A CMMS allows creating templates of maintenance plans for each asset or asset group, defining periodicities (systematic or condition-based) and documenting procedures.

Automated scheduling
The CMMS automatically generates planned interventions based on pre-established cycles or condition thresholds. It also triggers alerts based on real-time data or monitored parameters.

HSE tracking and regulatory compliance
Interventions related to regulatory inspections and HSE constraints can be integrated into dedicated workflows in the CMMS, with validations and centralized histories to prepare for external audits.

Standardized documentation
Each planned task includes instructions, checklists, allocated resources (personnel, spare parts) and success criteria. This facilitates consistent execution of operations and the essential traceability for audits.

By structuring maintenance plans around these principles and relying on a robust CMMS, managers can design interventions that precisely meet the constraints of energy storage and conversion systems, while ensuring safety, compliance and performance of installations.

How to reduce critical failures through better anticipation of maintenance?

Understand mechanisms behind critical failures

In industrial batteries, hydrogen installations or compression stations, failures are rarely instantaneous. They are generally preceded by progressive signals linked to well-identified mechanisms:

• aging of components subjected to repeated cycles
• thermal or mechanical drifts caused by intensive operating conditions,
• adjustment or alignment faults following previous interventions.

The ability to reduce incidents depends on teams’ capacity to detect these phenomena early enough, based on reliable data and structured feedback.

Use feedback to make more reliable decisions

Analysis of past failures is an essential foundation to anticipate future breakdowns. By consolidating histories of incidents, faults and interventions, maintenance managers can:

• identify the assets most prone to drift,
• highlight recurring failure scenarios,
• adjust maintenance practices based on observed facts.

The CMMS DimoMaint centralizes this information by asset and equipment family, providing a chronological view of events. This structuring prevents loss of critical information and limits repetition of known incidents.

Combine condition-based and predictive maintenance

Condition-based maintenance relies on triggers linked to asset usage, using counters such as operating hours or number of cycles. It adapts interventions to actual operating intensity rather than relying solely on the calendar.

Predictive maintenance uses sensors and monitoring systems that continuously measure physical or electrical parameters. Interventions are triggered by alerts indicating a drift or an abnormal asset behavior.

Combining these two approaches gives teams a maintenance strategy structured both around usage and the real condition of installations, which limits unanticipated failures and reduces reliance on emergency repairs.

Structure failure anticipation with the CMMS

Better anticipation requires clear organization of information and decisions. The CMMS plays a structuring role by enabling:

• linking operational data and alerts to the relevant assets,
• accessing the history of interventions,
• formalizing trigger rules for actions adapted to observed drifts.

With the CMMS DimoMaint, these elements can be translated into work orders, targeted inspections or planned replacements, according to the identified risk level. Maintenance managers can thus intervene at the most appropriate time, limit unplanned downtime and reduce exposure to risky situations.

How to monitor maintenance performance of energy storage and conversion systems?

Identify indicators suited to energy assets

Maintenance performance indicators should be chosen according to asset characteristics and associated risks. Some indicators are particularly relevant for managing energy storage and conversion systems:

• MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)
  This indicator assesses asset reliability by measuring the average time between failures. For batteries or compressors, its trend highlights the real impact of preventive and condition-based maintenance strategies.
• MTTR (Mean Time To Repair)
  The average repair time indicates teams’ capacity to restore installations quickly after a failure. In highly interconnected systems, a high MTTR can reveal access difficulties, lack of intervention preparation or insufficiently structured documentation.
• Asset availability rate
  Availability is a central indicator for industrial managers because it directly reflects the system’s ability to perform its storage or conversion function. It helps quantify the impact of planned and unplanned stoppages on operations.
• Ratio of preventive to corrective maintenance
  Tracking this ratio helps assess the level of maintenance anticipation. A too-high share of corrective maintenance on these sensitive installations increases exposure to risks and uncontrolled stoppages.

These indicators should be tracked over sufficiently long periods to be interpretable, taking into account operating cycles and ramp-up phases of installations.

Structure monitoring with reliable dashboards

To be effectively used, indicators must be accessible, consistent and updated automatically. A CMMS plays a structuring role here by centralizing data from interventions, stoppages and failure histories.

The CMMS DimoMaint enables maintenance management and the construction of dashboards tailored to your needs.

How to secure maintenance operations and guarantee traceability of interventions?

Securing maintenance operations

Each intervention must be prepared taking into account the specific hazards associated with the asset and its environment.

Maintenance managers generally rely on several organizational levers:

• Preliminary risk analysis
• Formalization of intervention conditions
• Supervision of high-risk interventions

This structuring reduces gaps between theoretical procedure and field reality, while protecting teams working on high-energy-density installations.

Guarantee traceability of interventions

Energy storage and conversion installations are subject to strict regulatory requirements, notably regarding safety, periodic inspections and tracking of interventions.

To meet these requirements, maintenance must ensure:

• proof of performed checks and their compliance,
• traceability of regulatory interventions,
• availability of histories during internal or external audits.

A structured organization demonstrates that operations were carried out in accordance with applicable requirements, without relying on scattered documents or individual knowledge.

The role of the CMMS

The CMMS is the organizational foundation that links safety and traceability on a daily basis. It structures operations without overburdening field practices.

Concretely, a CMMS like CMMS DimoMaint enables:

• embedding safety instructions and checklists directly into work orders,
• associating each intervention with:
  • an asset,
  • a risk level,
  • required competencies,
• automatically recording:
  • dates,
  • technicians,
  • results of checks,

• maintaining a reliable and usable history for audits and internal analyses.

This organization strengthens control of human and technical risks while providing clear visibility on operations performed and their compliance.

Securing maintenance operations and traceability of interventions rely on a combination of rigorous procedures, a risk prevention culture and centralized data. A structured CMMS aligns these elements: it provides an organized framework to define, plan, monitor and analyze interventions, thereby improving team safety and the quality of maintenance decisions.

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