UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) equipment plays a significant role in any mission critical or data center facility where consistent power availability is a pre-requisite. UPS equipment offers filtered power as well as backup power in case of a power outage. It is a known fact that energy costs have tremendously multiplied in the last few years and power shortages are on the rise, as a result of which effective use of energy has become a primary cause of concern for a great majority of end-users. As per the statistics on electricity prices for industrial users as reported by Eurostat, prices shot up approximately by 12% in 2006 in comparison to 2005 for the 27 countries in the European Union.

Today, Energy efficient UPS systems have become the new industrial mantra. Energy efficiency can be considerably maximized by using modular and scalable UPS systems.  At present, datacenters are the heaviest consumers of power and therefore, the problem of energy efficiency is of core concern to them. As a result, UPS manufacturers are constantly doing research and development work in the field to make the design, software,  components and energy storage solutions compatible in such a way as to minimize the losses.

However, savings from energy efficient UPS systems only form a relatively small part of the total datacenter energy consumption. One of the preferred methods to decrease power consumption is to make use of an optimized IT architecture and an energy efficient solution that consists of racks, cooling equipment, servers, flooring, UPS systems and energy storage equipment. Energy-efficient UPS systems create considerable cost savings over the lifetime of the UPS, have a positive impact on the environment and reduce environmental hazards, provide tax benefits and incentives as well as enhance the goodwill of the end-user and the UPS manufacturer.

UPS manufacturers have become much more attentive to the requirements of the end-user. They have started to provide not only better equipment, suitable to the users’ environment, but also the efficient management of platforms to reduce operating costs and financial tools required to overcome credit shortage that facilitates the implementation of new technologies.