HOW YOU CAN REDUCE UPS TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP BY RIGHTSIZING

How do professional UPS users ensure they install a UPS that always provides them the highest level of power protection at the lowest possible cost throughout the UPS’s working life? This is the question posed by By David Bond, Chairman, Centiel UK [right].

The answer is either have a perfect vision of the future or install a scalable UPS.

The Power Protection Problem

Most organisations have a critical load comprising IT equipment that must be fully operational at all times, so they need an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).

UPS systems have a useful working life of 12-15 years which, in a typical IT environment, will see 3-4 generations of server etc. upgrades.

It is also likely to see changing load demand as the organisation’s business expands or contracts, so how does the organisation ensure they fit the right sized UPS for both now and the future?

Fit an oversized UPS on day one

This is the solution most often seen on a site. If lucky, the organisation will be able to measure its existing critical load and have a good starting point for UPS sizing but what does the future hold?

Installing a UPS that is the right size for today may prove to be an expensive mistake in 2-3 years’ time when an IT upgrade or business expansion occurs and the new UPS is now too small.

Replacing a relatively new UPS wastes CAPEX and is highly disruptive to site operations so fitting a larger than currently necessary UPS “just in case” often appears to be a good solution.

After various levels of Management and the Consultant etc. have each added their little bit of “just in case”, the UPS finally selected UPS will be oversized, wasting both CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) and OPEX (Operating Expenditure).

Why oversized UPS waste CAPEX and OPEX

Large UPS are more expensive to purchase than small UPS so there is an inevitable hit to CAPEX but wasted CAPEX is only part of the problem.

Not properly maintaining a UPS is very unwise and large UPS cost more to maintain than small UPS, so maintenance costs need to be considered.

Maintaining a UPS is not wasting OPEX but paying to maintain a UPS that is oversized definitely is.

UPS operate more efficiently when they are more heavily loaded than when they are lightly loaded. This lower operating efficiency wastes expensive energy and therefore wastes OPEX.

For example, if a site installs a 300kW UPS for a 100kW load the UPS will operate at a suboptimal point on the efficiency curve. If the UPS operating efficiency is only 1% worse than optimal, for a 100kW load, 1kWH is being wasted every hour. At 50.897p/kWH (accurate at the time of writing) the UPS will waste £4,458p/a or £44,585 over its typical 10 year useful working life.

Scalable UPS

Both single and three phase modular UPS list scalability amongst their many operational benefits. The ability to “pay-as-you-grow” means that an organisation can plan for its future UPS needs but not pay for it until needed. Taking the 100kW load example from above. The organisation could install a CumulusPower three phase modular UPS cabinet capable of supplying 300kW but only fit two 60kW UPS modules into the cabinet.

This will minimise both CAPEX and OPEX by only paying to purchase and maintain the 120kW currently needed and operating the UPS at an optimal point on the efficiency curve.

The future is also protected because if the UPS load ever increases above 120kW a third 60kW UPS module can be fitted into the UPS cabinet increasing it to 180kW, and so on up to 300kW.

Three-phase modular UPS cabinets capable of supplying up to 900kW are available making the benefits of scalable UPS available to almost all organisations.

Ready for Growth

Oversized UPS are inefficient and cost more to buy and maintain. The correct sizing of a UPS ensures efficiency in system design and reduces its overall total cost of ownership (TCO).

Centiel’s true modular UPS are scalable, so an organisation can install what it currently needs and can add UPS capacity, when needed, using a “pay-as-you-grow” approach.

Only the UPS’s electrical infrastructure needs to be ready for future growth, allowing for system upgrades without the need to transfer the load to bypass or a site shutdown.

Centiel’s sales engineers act as trusted advisors to all its clients and ensure that all Centiel’s UPS systems are perfectly sized to cost effectively meet all their clients’ needs.

At CENTIEL our design team has been working with critical loads for many years at the forefront of technological development.

We are the trusted advisors to some of the world’s leading institutions and our UPS product range contains class leading free standing and true modular UPS, providing the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) because of very high level of operating efficiency and low maintenance costs.

For more information about Centiel’s full range of UPS solutions please see: www.centiel.co.uk