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Step into Capney
How to avoid health problems caused by factors other than the UPS itself.
Release time:
2019-11-11
Do you realize how important regular medical checkups are? This is a question and reflection on life posed by the founder of Innovation Works after enduring the torment of cancer. Detecting subhealth conditions and potential diseases at an early stage through medical checkups—and making timely adjustments and receiving treatment—plays a crucial role in enhancing one’s quality of life.
Similarly, the critical infrastructure—UPS—in data centers also requires regular health checks to identify potential issues and prevent problems before they occur. However, the current common practice in the UPS industry is to address problems only after they arise, rather than monitoring them in real time and handling them promptly.
What is affecting UPS’s health?
As the DNA of UPS systems, reliability, availability, maintainability, and manufacturability are the primary factors that influence the overall health of UPS systems. Secondarily, testability, manageability, and security—as well as issues arising during packaging and shipping, on-site implementation, and daily operations—also play a significant role.
The commonly used indicators for assessing health status include the following:
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MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure): The average operating time between two consecutive failures.
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MTTR (Mean Time To Repair: Average Repair Time) is the ratio of the total repair time for corrective maintenance performed on products at a specified repair level, under specified conditions and within a specified time frame, to the total number of failures occurring in products repaired at that level.
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Availability (availability) = MTBF / (MTBF + MTTR), which represents the probability or expected time occupancy—expressed as a percentage—that a system will operate normally over a given reference period.
However, these metrics are largely based on the repair time following a UPS failure. In contrast, is there a way to monitor UPS systems more quickly, conveniently, and in real time—detecting problems before they occur and thus proactively preventing them? This raises a new concept for assessing the health of UPS systems.
UPS Failure—Who’s to Blame?
Eaton’s survey of more than 100 data centers worldwide found that 40% of UPS failures are attributable to component failures, while 60% are due to other factors such as human error, design issues, and on-site implementation challenges. The study also revealed that the average loss caused by data center outages amounts to approximately $471,000 per hour, with 23% of owners facing losses exceeding $1,000,000 per hour.
Therefore, 74% of Eaton’s data center customers believe that a monitoring and alerting system equipped with predictive analytics is highly valuable. Real-time on-site monitoring provides clear visibility into the status of UPS systems, enabling timely responses and interventions.
Every profession has its own expertise.
Eaton UPS has a health management system.
The constantly evolving needs of customers are influencing the development trends of UPS systems. On the one hand, capacity is trending toward larger scales; some projects require parallel operation of multiple units to meet the demand for UPS capacity. On the other hand, the requirements for reliability are becoming increasingly stringent.
Eaton Wireless Hot Sync® Hot-Sync Parallel Operation Technology
Currently, parallel operation is a major approach to enhancing the reliability of UPS systems. However, in any parallel system, achieving synchronization, load sharing, and selective tripping are the three most critical technologies. Eaton’s patented Hot Sync® wireless hot-synchronization technology has been thoroughly validated for parallel operation both among modules within models such as the Eaton 9395, 93E, and 93PR, and between entire systems. It is now successfully deployed in over 100,000 parallel systems worldwide, elevating the concept of UPS parallel operation to a new level.
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Eaton’s Wireless Hot Sync parallel operating technology eliminates the risk of synchronization and load-sharing failures caused by the failure of traditional UPS parallel communication cables, effectively addressing the single-point failure bottleneck.
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By fully leveraging the functions of digital control software, it is possible to parallel-connect 4 to 8 UPS units, minimizing circulating currents among the paralleled units and ensuring that the load distribution imbalance is less than 5%.
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Adopt an adaptive algorithm for synchronization tracking and load balancing.
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In a parallel system, no UPS has a master-slave relationship; each UPS operates independently and completely on its own, and can quickly disconnect from the system in case of a failure.
ABM smart battery management technology extends battery lifespan.
Battery banks provide the ultimate backup power for data centers and represent a significant investment for these facilities. Users are often misled by their common nickname, “maintenance-free batteries,” but in real-world applications, if even one battery in a series-connected battery bank malfunctions, it could prevent the UPS from providing reliable power when it matters most. Eaton’s AMB smart battery management technology enables more rational battery maintenance:
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Proactive Battery Failure Warning
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Intermittent charging significantly extends battery life by 50% compared to the traditional long-term float charging mode.
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Prevent battery overcharging
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Reduce charging ripple corrosion of battery plates.
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Preventing thermal runaway and deformation failures during battery charging
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Automatic temperature compensation for charging voltage
ECT Dummy Load Testing Technology
It is essential to conduct comprehensive monitoring of the newly built data center infrastructure by simulating operation with dummy loads. However, dummy-load validation tests typically incur substantial testing costs and can significantly extend project delivery timelines, making them quite expensive. Nevertheless, in recent years, the industry has been increasingly adopting dummy-load validation testing for new data centers—because while the testing costs are predictable, the losses incurred from failures after putting the facility into operation with unresolved risks would be extremely difficult to quantify in monetary terms.
Eaton UPS products are guaranteed to undergo 100% factory testing with a 4- to 48-hour dummy-load test. All key power components are reliably verified under load, helping users save on acceptance costs and allowing for on-site testing services as well.
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Provides a flexible solution for testing high-capacity UPS systems.
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No need to rent any dummy load, no cable connections required.
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Can be done anytime, anywhere.
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All power components of the UPS can undergo full-load testing.
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Don't waste electrical energy.
ESS AC Direct Supply Technology
The reliability of municipal power supply is far superior to that of any other power source. Eaton offers unique ESS AC-direct power support for three-phase power supplies, which automatically determine—based on system operating conditions—whether to perform an online switchover. The switchover time is less than 2-4 milliseconds, ensuring both rapid and reliable switching.
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In ESS mode, the rectification and inversion sections act as filters, effectively absorbing surge energy from the power grid, ensuring that the load does not directly experience the impact of surge energy, and reducing peak energy and grid disturbances.
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In the direct-grid-supply ESS mode, the system efficiency can reach up to 99%.
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Effectively extends the lifespan of components such as fans and capacitors.
World-class Eaton UPS Health Management Platform
In Shenzhen, Eaton operates a world-class Asia-Pacific testing center with a testing capacity of up to 2.2 MW. This center conducts dummy-load and E-Load tests on all UPS units—both standalone and parallel systems—including their power distribution equipment and accessories. It also monitors the voltage, current, frequency, and functionality of every input/output port on battery packs, ensuring that every delivered product is in perfect working condition. Additionally, we can provide customized validation testing services tailored to customer needs, covering the following test items:
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Module Load Testing
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Efficiency testing (including efficiency under Eaton UPS ESS & VMMS modes)
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Overload, Fault, Harmonics, Power Factor
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Parallel operation/Hot synchronization
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Third-party interface testing
Infrared temperature scanning
During operation, the components that UPS primarily powers carry relatively high currents and thus generate significant heat. According to statistics, 65% of component failures are caused by excessive temperatures, yet internal components are often difficult to detect.
To enable operations and maintenance personnel to conveniently perform regular inspections of these overheated components, Eaton offers a customized infrared scanning feature that allows users to easily monitor the actual operating temperatures of their equipment and proactively prevent potential accidents.
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The test is convenient and allows for rapid scanning to detect the temperatures of various critical components, including the rectifier module, inverter module, battery module, inductors, capacitors, power cables, and internal components such as busbars.
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Risk prediction allows users to conveniently track and compare temperature data on a regular basis, enabling them to identify potential failing components in advance, perform equipment maintenance and replacements proactively, and thereby enhance system reliability.
Can these seemingly independent systems leverage technologies such as the Internet of Things and big data to aggregate and analyze the monitored UPS status and data, thereby enabling a more scientific approach to managing the health of UPS systems? The answer is yes.
Leveraging continuous technological breakthroughs and a forward-looking R&D philosophy, Eaton is harnessing IoT and big data technologies to build the next-generation remote monitoring and predictive analytics service platform. The goal is to integrate disparate monitoring and management measures related to UPS health management, enabling real-time monitoring of UPS health conditions and providing predictive analytics to help users promptly mitigate failure risks and usher in a whole new stage of user experience.
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