Uninterruptible power supply – Storage simplified
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Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is a capability that provides backup power to the primary electrical system so that there is minimal disruption to the functionality of the electrical system in the event of a blackout or brownout. Consequently, this provides organisations with the confidence that their operations will continue as normal in the event of an energy-related failure.
UPS is particularly important as recent reports suggest that UK businesses that do not have an energy resilience strategy, such as technology with full UPS capabilities, are exposed to energy-related failures which can cost as much as 17 per cent of a company’s annual revenue which equates to £2.8m each year in damages and lost opportunities.
The importance for energy resilience is emphasised further due to this high financial risk coupled with the declining security of supply of the UK’s electricity system, with the total unsupplied energy, the deficit between the energy required and energy that was delivered, on the Great Britain network increasing from 20.02 MWh in 2015-2016 to 105.01MWh in 2016-2017.2
One of the most effective ways of delivering increased energy resilience through UPS which mitigates the effects of energy-related failures is through energy storage. This is because the stored energy can be used when the supply of energy is disrupted.
However, not all energy storage solutions offer UPS in the same manner. This is because most are not seamless, in which case there still exists the possibility of an interruption in the moments it takes for the UPS to respond to the energy failure.
In contrast to this is Powerstar VIRTUE, which does offer seamless support as it is second generation technology. This results in the Powerstar VIRTUE connecting to the load within milliseconds of an energy-related failure which eliminates the delayed response and with it the chance of interruptions, even on a scale as small as flickering lights.