Paper Presentations

Global Digitalization Promotes UPS Investments and Upgrades
Farah Saeed, Frost & Sullivan

The UPS systems market is finally coming out of the slump. Frost & Sullivan estimates that the North American UPS market grew around 7 percent during 2004 and is projected to grow between 5 and 6 percent for the next five years.

Industries such as the enterprise, healthcare and industrial market are deploying advanced technologies to improve efficiency, reduce cost, and increase availability of their operations. As a result, huge investments in network equipment upgrades, data centers, and digital equipment are all becoming an integral part of the business.

These investments must be protected against daily hidden power abnormalities such as voltage fluctuations, sags, as well as more visible power issues such as blackouts. Power abnormalities cost between $119 and $188 billion a year. Today, UPS systems are not only used for back-up power but also for ensuring power conditioning and surge protection. This paper will highlight market opportunity trends by vertical markets for UPS systems, specifically for the healthcare, industrial, government, and SMB sector.

A State of the Art Review of Energy Storage Alternatives for Mission Critical UPS & CPS Power Systems
Dennis DeCoster, Mission Critical West Inc.

This paper will examine the state of the art in commercially viable DC energy storage for uninterruptible and continuous power systems (UPS and CPS). Specifically, newly released lead acid batteries, latest generation nickel metal hydride batteries, lithium ion batteries, low speed flywheels and high speed flywheels will be examined in detail. Cycle (or "hits") resistance, temperature tolerance, reliability/availability ratings, maintenance & support requirements, space requirements, environmental impacts, and return on investment (ROI) issues will be presented for all DC storage systems currently available and commercially viable.

Increasing the Efficiency of UPS Technology
Richard L. Sawyer, American Power Conversion

The need for power conditioning technologies in large-scale data centers is a recognized design criteria. Historically, the concern over energy efficiency of these systems has been a secondary concern to reliability. This emphasis was justified when electrical energy costs were in the $0.05 to $0.08 per KWH range and there was a substantial difference in UPS system reliability between manufacturers. Today, reliability of UPS systems has improved remarkably and manufacturers routinely supply systems with MTBF (mean time between failure) ratings of 1 Million hours or more. Concurrent with this increase in reliability is the increasing costs of electricity, with costs of $0.10-$0.15 per KWH routinely experienced by users, especially in the Northeast, Central and West Coast areas. Efficiency as a design parameter has grown in importance to be a major concern, especially with corporations striving for "Green" status and high LEED certified standings (gold, silver, platinum). The proper selection of a large-scale power conditioning system can pay for itself in energy savings over very short periods, typically 2.5-4 years. This paper discusses the technologies available to realize those kinds of savings and presents a case study in the cost impact of selecting between older and newer technologies, both having the same reliability ratings. In many such cases, the savings in energy will pay for the preventive maintenance and service costs annually, or for the annual cost to staff a 7x24 data center.