UPS
WHY IT’S TIME MAKE THE M TO MODULAR CHRIS CUTLER, DATA CENTRE EFFICIENCY EXPERT FOR RIELLO UPS, EXPLAINS HOW MODULAR UNINTERRUPTIBLE POWER SUPPLIES DELIVER BOTH ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS.
T
he demands on data centres have never been greater. Our personal and professional lives are driven by the Internet of Things (IoT). Indeed, within the next five years there’ll be more than 600 million connected devices in the UK, with the impending introduction of 5G superfast internet placing even greater burdens on storage and processing. That’s why data centre capacity in the UK will soon top 900,000m2. But all these server rooms are power-hungry. Electricity accounts for more than half a typical operator’s total running costs.
46 | December 2018
In the UK alone, data centres consume more than three terawatt hours of power per year. Large facilities eat up 30 GWh of power, an eye-watering annual electricity bill topping £3 million. Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) are an essential part of any data centre’s infrastructure, minimising the risk of damaging downtime. Yet while resilience and reliability remain the key criteria any UPS system will be judged against, in an increasingly energy-conscious environment, improved efficiency is a crucial factor too. Thankfully for data centre operators, there’s a solution that ticks all these boxes – the modular UPS.