Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

It has been a Cinderella story for Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) this year as the power protection units grew in revenue 24 percent in 2010, with a 58 percent surge for three-phase UPS greater than 100 kVA, according to a recent study on the market from IMS Research.

One area that has especially evidenced the surge in UPS popularity is Latin America. Specifically, last year, high power three-phase UPS – typically associated with data centers – picked up nearly three points share of Latin America’s UPS market as a result of the exponential growth in Brazil and Mexico. The growth of the three-phase power protection units is expected to continue in Latin America especially with the help of government and infrastructure investments particularly in Brazil and Mexico.

“Brazil presents the best opportunity for three-phase UPS growth,” said IMS Research Market Analyst Lori Lewis. “With an economically healthier middle class, more individuals are able to take advantage of modern day information technology and mobile computing devices resulting in exponentially growing computing and data storage needs. Three-phase UPS going into data centers will have to grow just as fast in order to keep up with all of this increased demand.”

The reason power protection units have taken off so greatly in Latin America is largely because of the expanding IT market. The three-phase segment is expected to continue to see monumental gains as capital spending is going towards data center projects across all industries, according to industry experts.

While three-phase units are burgeoning rapidly, single-phase UPS growth is slowing since voltage regulators and laptop computers, which eliminate the need for an UPS, are becoming more widely used in Latin America. Like Latin America, Mexico is dabbling in the power protection pool as well especially with large data center builds going into medium and large businesses, banking and infrastructure advances. In fact, Mexico offers significant advantages for foreign investors over Brazil due to fewer import taxes, fewer local competitors, fewer barriers to entry into the market and an overall more sustainable growth.

In other industry news, power protection company Minuteman has some news its eager to spread; the PRO-LCD series of UPS just got a whole lot better.

Recently, Minuteman sent out an email blast to customers explaining that the PRO-LCD Series UPS now boasts updated features and longer runtimes, among other things.

“The most prominent new feature on the PRO-LCD Series is the LCD status display, a feature which is quickly becoming standard equipment throughout the industry,” Duston Nixon, marketing communications specialist for Minuteman, told TMCnet. “With this display, users can monitor the status of both their utility input power and the UPS’ output power. This is useful when diagnosing problems, and when used in conjunction with our SentryPlus monitoring and management software, gives users a complete real-time look at their power. The display also tells users the status of the UPS, its batteries, and provides estimated runtime that is available should a blackout occur.”