What is the difference between Industrial UPS and Standard UPS?
Poor power quality can wreak havoc on business systems uptime, impacting both safety and driving up operational costs. Depending upon the specific industry, lost revenues resulting from unplanned downtime can run into millions of pounds per day.
For industrial applications such as manufacturing, core process infrastructure is very sensitive to un-expected power failure. Sudden loss of power during manufacturing causes big problems in a very short space of time, often resulting in a loss of that batch of product and a lengthy clean down and re-starting process.
So choosing the right Uninterruptible Power Supply UPS) to ensure that the threat of all power problems are taken care of is vital. Whilst it may seem like all UPS perform the same tasks in the same way, selecting the most appropriate UPS for the application or environment it will be working in is clearly important.
It’s common in industries such as Oil & Gas , Utilities, Marine, Mining, Life Sciences and Manufacturing, to find different UPS types: Standard UPS systems (that are often seen in office buildings/IT or Server rooms) and Industrial UPS systems (that are more often encountered in harsh, more extreme environments).
When deciding which type of UPS is best suited to your application, it’s important to understand the differences between Industrial UPS and standard UPS.
Physical:
Industrial UPS are usually built in ruggedised enclosures with higher rated air filters to protect against and can often be IP rated to protect against fluid ingress.
Environmental:
A standard UPS is designed to operate in a controlled environment where the operating temperature should not exceed 40 degrees celsius. Industrial UPS are more resilient to hot and cold environments and can usually operate in a temperature range between -10 to 55 degree celsius and harsh conditions, that can be humid, dusty, susceptible to water splash and even seismic activity.
Service Life:
Most manufacturers of standard UPS recommend a service life of around 10 years. This can be extended by another 3-5 years with refurbishment services such as APC by Schneider Electrics “Revitalisation” program or Riello’s “UPS Overhaul” scheme.
For Industrial UPS as the components are specifically designed to be more rugged and hard wearing, the service life expectancy can be anywhere from 20-30 years.
UPS Service and Maintenance
For maximum up time, it’s vital that both standard UPS and Industrial UPS are purchased with a comprehensive UPS support and maintenance contract. With standard UPS this would usually include 1 preventative maintenance visit (PMV) per annum, but with Industrial UPS more frequent visits are often required. With Industrial UPS often being deployed in remote locations.
For more information about standard or industrial UPS or to request a quotation, get in touch with Source UPS today!
Call: 01252 692559 or email: info@sourceups.co.uk
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