30 UPS
Michael Brooks, Managing Director, CENTIEL Ltd
Achieving UPS System Efficiency
When you ask clients what their number one goal for their UPS system is, the answer is always availability. Datacentres for example, require 100% power availability as their customers depend on 24/7 access to their data. In other words, they want a system which never fails, reports Michael Brooks, Managing Director, CENTIEL Ltd.
O
ver the years, there have been many developments in
UPS technology to improve reliability and availability. One of these was the transformer- less technology pioneered by Filippo Marbach and his design team in the 1990s. Mr. Marbach was also the driving force behind the design and development of the first three phase modular UPS. Continuing this passion for technological innovation, in 2015 he founded CENTIEL SA in Switzerland. Modern UPS systems such as CENTIEL’s CumulusPowerTM, incorporating Distributed Active Redundant Architecture (DARA), provide a significant improvement over previous system designs. Each module contains all the power elements of a UPS – rectifier, inverter, static switch, display - and critically - all control and monitoring circuitry. This
“In our
ever-evolving world, future- proofing systems is one of the greatest challenges faced by system designers.”
- Michael Brooks, Managing Director, CENTIEL Ltd
places it above other current designs that have a separate, single static switch assembly and separate control or intelligence modules as there is no single point of failure. Availability for this system is now 99.9999999%. However, any UPS that is not
maintained properly will not be reliable and therefore availability may be compromised. Organisations should avoid maintenance con- tracts where repairs are chargeable. They may initially seem the ‘cheaper’ option however, it is not always in the maintainer’s interest that the
Worldwide Independent Power January - February 2018
system at its most reliable. The contractor makes the most margin on repair works. A fully comprehensive maintenance contract is preferable. Here the maintainer makes the most profit if the system is reliable. As well as availability, organisations need to consider the total cost of ownership of a UPS system and this is related to the purchase price, system efficiency (running costs) and the cost of maintenance. I’ve touched on maintenance,
so how a system is configured to maximize efficiency is another area demanding attention. The challenge is that IT requirements change quickly. Over a six-year period a Comms Room with 6kW load might easily have grown to a 30kW load. So how can an infrastructure be built to meet these dramatically changing demands? Put simply, a UPS needs to
operate on the best point of its efficiency curve. A system
which is too small will be over- loaded which will compromise reliability and availability. A system which is too large will waste energy and be inefficient and costly to run. The maintenance cost will also be higher. Scalability & flexibility is therefore an essential consideration when purchasing to ensure the continual ‘right sizing’ of the UPS. In our ever-evolving world,
future-proofing systems is one of the greatest challenges faced by system designers. The good news is that modern modular UPS systems can be quickly and easily reconfigured to adapt to changes in load requirements over time. This not only ensures the highest efficiency is maintained but, more importantly, it guarantees availability of power protection whatever the future holds. For further information about CENTEIL Ltd please see:
www.centiel.co.uk
www.gmp.uk.com
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