APC by Schneider Electric, a global leader in integrated critical power and cooling services has released its highly anticipated Efficiency Booster Mode (EBM) operation for MGE Galaxy 7000 Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) connected in parallel. The new EBM features promise reduced UPS operational expenses.
Shri Karve, director of business development, APC by Schneider Electric said, “Customers managing large loads, such as those found in data centres or in Cloud applications, need to ensure availability. However, they are also looking at ways to improve the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), PUE and carbon footprint of their power protection systems. EBM helps facilities managers and data centre managers to improve the effectiveness of their energy management programmes.”
The new firmware enables customers to maintain the highest level of efficiency (reducing losses by up to 20%) in an MGE Galaxy 7000 parallel system. It achieves this by automatically placing underutilised UPS power modules into sleep (standby) mode when the system load is much lower than the installed capacity. It does this without any compromise to system redundancy, at the same time eliminating the cost overhead created by powering and cooling underutilised infrastructure.
Once the system load starts to increase, EBM reacts accordingly and will command additional UPS power module/ s to commence sharing the load, again without affecting the designed redundancy.
EBM should not be confused with ECO mode of operation, since with ECO mode UPSs do not operate as double conversion online units and can expose the critical load to utility power quality issues and disturbances.
In real terms EBM provides active scalability to maintain high system efficiency since all the active UPS modules will have lower operational heat loss due to higher individual efficiency. EBM can also result in lower cooling/ ventilation costs since there is less heat rejection to be dealt with. The EBM firmware solution has very fast inherent response parameters which are well matched to double conversion online static UPS units. However, EBM may not be the right firmware for any of the Rotary UPS solutions mainly due to the high mechanical inertia and poor impact load response of almost 100 ms.
Shri Karve said, “EBM enables a Galaxy 7000 parallel system to be right-sized according to load conditions or redundancy requirements. In itself, this is a major step towards higher system efficiency as, at low load, fixed losses do not become the major proportion of energy cost associated with power protection. At the same time, flexibility is retained for future changes and growth.”
APC recommend rotation for active units on regular basis, so that UPS units do not stay in standby or sleep mode for more than 3 months at a time, this helps to extend the life expectancy of the backup battery banks by ensuring they are kept in a healthy state at all time. EBM can also assist during UPS module maintenance, since the units can be brought online much faster after service and vice versa. This can result in very high availability of almost six nines.
MGE Galaxy 7000 UPS provide high performance, 3-phase power protection with high adaptability to meet the unique requirements of medium to large data centres, industrial applications, buildings and other mission critical environments. Up to 94.5% efficient, Galaxy 7000 UPS have a small footprint and demonstrate robust electrical performance, high fault clearing capability and a clean and stable output waveform to ensure an optimum supply to the load and increase the life expectancy of protected equipment.
Available in 160kVA to 500kVA ratings, up to 8 Galaxy 7000 units can be connected in parallel to provide a 4MVA solution. Efficiency Booster Mode is available for all Galaxy 7000 UPS currently being shipped; existing installations can be upgraded to provide EBM operation.
APC by Schneider Electric
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