Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

In an effort to improve its services to its clients, power protection specialist Master Power has designed and developed a test center that will evaluate uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. UPSs have become a huge industry since companies are increasingly relying on their computing and unified communications infrastructures, including VoIP.

The 1 000 KvA test center “is used for the testing of UPS systems and the computerized procedures are fully automated,” the Engineering News report states, adding that the center enables the company to reduce the extent of downtime for clients through its capacity to provide a quick testing turnaround time.

Downtime is the one word company IT departments fear above any other. Anything that eliminates downtime is greatly to be valued.

Master Power Technologists Founder and Owner Menno Parsons (News - Alert) told Engineering News that the test center has permanent load banks of 650 kW capacity, with “the ability to expand load testing capacity to 1 300 kW, when the need arises,” and that what he called “a significant amount of investment” was channeled into the automation systems to enhance the control systems.

As Parsons said, control and switching of modern-day power solutions are complicated procedures, and “the reliability of the system can be affected through incorrect switching – hence, the need for proper training.”

A couple months ago TMCnet reported that the need for power protection in the form of UPSs is continuing to burgeon rapidly, and experts estimate that the global UPS market will grow by $1 billion in 2011 over last year.

Pike Research (News - Alert) expects the market to expand from $7.2 billion in 2010 to $8.2 billion in 2011 – growing by 12.2 percent, according to a Datacenter Dynamics story.

So what is the reason for this sudden surge? The need to protect electronic equipment from instabilities surrounding the power grid and a growing intolerance for downtime as more and more IT infrastructures move into data centers where standards for storage reliability are high.

One company that stands ready to address the need for uptime is Minuteman UPS/Para Systems (News - Alert), a leading provider of power protection products. Recently, Minuteman’s power protection family got a little bigger as the company unveiled the Minuteman PRO-LCD series, a new line of UPSs designed to safeguard medium-sized telephone, security and server systems from power anomalies.

The PRO-LCD is the next generation of Minuteman’s highly successful PRO Series of UPSs.