UNCOVERING THE LAYERS
centre reference designs to plan and
configure power systems in a way that
can serve growth. This will not only
enable users to select and test potential
configurations but provide them with
reassurance that the architecture will
work as predicted.
Maintenance and
battery considerations
Marc Garner, Vice President, Secure
Power Division, Schneider Electric, UK
might consider how to arrange the UPS
configuration in order to provide increased
capacity, ensuring that resilience, or
uptime, is of the highest priority.
For high levels of availability, a UPS may
need to be deployed in a parallel, N+1 or
distributed redundant design, so that the
failure of any one can be accommodated
without risk of total loss of power.
If the need for future expansion is critical,
one might also consider the use of data
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
With the blame for many outages often
lying with human error, maintenance is
another aspect that has to be considered
as part of any business continuity plan.
To avoid downtime, it is recommended
that a UPS be easily accessible from
the front, which will simplify servicing
throughout its life-cycle. Dust filters,
for example, may need to be replaced
frequently, therefore deploying a solution
where they are placed on the front will
allow them to be easily removed and
lower any potential issues with other
critical components.
Many traditional UPSs will utilise valve-
regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery
systems, which can be far less efficient in
terms of energy use, than Lithium-Ion (Li-
Ion) chemistries. Li-Ion offers a far longer
life cycle to the user, nearing 10 years,
which is often double that of VRLA. Not
only does this reduce maintenance costs
and the accompanying challenge of human
error, but operating costs are lowered as
batteries must be changed less frequently.
Finally, use of IoT-enabled sensors within
newer UPS models facilitates greater
remote management capabilities. Data
analytics can deliver detailed insights
into the system status, which ensures
continuity by providing real-time alerts
of potential power loss or failures. A
primary example here will mean that
batteries can be proactively replaced in
a timely fashion, mitigating the potential
for downtime and ensuring continuity for
the user.
Driving efficiency and selecting
operating modes
Additionally, many new UPS systems will
have an energy-saving mode of operation,
namely eco-mode, which bypasses the
filtering stage and connects the power
directly to the load. In situations where
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