Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

VYCON, which designs and manufactures advanced flywheel energy storage systems, has been selected by Austin Energy (News - Alert), a leading community-owned electric utility in the nation, to offer power backup solutions.

The clean power backup solutions from VYCON will help the electric utility protect the new Control Center of VYCON, which operates the utility’s data center and its grid including the switching of utility grid quadrants.

This deployment is significant for VYCON as it marks the milestone of 500 VYCON flywheel systems shipped, according to company officials.

VDC-XE flywheel systems are known to increase power backup by offering a clean, environment friendly alternative to toxic lead-acid batteries. They eliminate the use of traditional battery based UPS systems for the Control Center of VYCON.

As the UPS batteries are removed from the power infrastructure, the company can eliminate downtime, frequent battery maintenance, replacement and expensive cooling of the batteries for the next 20 years – the rated lifetime of the flywheels, company officials said.

The VDC-XE (Xtended Energy) flywheel systems together yield 4.8 megawatts of backup power and will protect the Control Center from storms and /or other events that may compromise electrical power. It can supply up to 300kW of DC power within a single cabinet and can be easily paralleled without special communications links or control systems for supporting megawatt load application.

"Flywheel UPSs are rapidly becoming the defacto choice for power protection when reliability is the key concern," said Dann McKeraghan, sales and marketing vice president for VYCON, in a statement. "This, coupled with their environmental advantages, and you have a win-win value proposition.”

 The UPS systems are tested and compatible with all major brands of three-phase UPS systems and available from VYCON's global channel partners. They offer lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than traditional battery-reliant UPS systems to offer reliable and environment friendly on-demand power.

UPS units and different forms of power protection have recently been spotlighted  the news as bouts of downtime continue to plague the industry and wreak havoc on businesses.

Recently, Duston Nixon, marketing communications specialist for Minuteman UPS/Para Systems (News - Alert), a leading provider of power supplies, told TMCnet on the importance of investing in power protection solutions, “When the facts are presented, however, it becomes apparent that a complete power protection system is a worthwhile investment that will prevent headaches for years to come.”