KOHLER Uninterruptible Power’s PW 9500DPA – The benchmark for power protection

Modern society is built on a foundation of data, with data centres becoming the lifeblood of health authorities, banks, government departments, retail outlets and almost every other entity that touches our lives. As KOHLER Uninterruptible Power (KUP) explain, a reliable UPS will guarantee this essential flow of continuous, clean power to the data centre and other IT facilities, no matter what happens to the power supply.

UPS guarantees clean power to data centre and other IT facilities

No critical data centre operates without an effective UPS and increasingly, even non-critical loads are relying on UPS systems to maximise availability and ensure a true no-break solution. ‘Zero down-time’ is now often an essential aspect of data centre operation. To attain this level of security, a continuous supply of clean power must be guaranteed, of which the UPS is a key component.

Scalability: PW 9500DPA

KOHLER Uninterruptible Power’s latest UPS system, the PW 9500DPA, has been designed from the ground up, specifically to guarantee that data is available 24/7. KOHLER Uninterruptible Power has a range of high efficiency UPS products that cover the full breadth of applications, including data centres of all sizes. Because UPS reliability and zero down-time are so crucial, these features have been made cornerstones of KOHLER Uninterruptible Power’s UPS design philosophy. Furthermore, because data centres now consume more energy than some major industries, data centre operators greet the significant reduction in energy bills achieved through high efficiency UPS systems with open arms.

KOHLER Uninterruptible Power’s newest UPS offering continues this tradition. With its standardised modular approach, low power consumption and high reliability, the PW 9500DPA provides a UPS solution well suited for all types of data centres from 100kW up to 3MW.

DPA

The decentralised parallel architecture (DPA), upon which the PW 9500DPA is based, refers to each 100kW UPS module containing the hardware and software required for full system operation. The modules share no common components, with each module containing its own independent static bypass, rectifier, inverter, logic control, control panel, battery charger and batteries. With all the critical components duplicated and distributed between individual units, potential single points of failure are eliminated. In the unlikely event that one UPS module does encounter a problem, the overall system will continue to operate normally, but with one less module of capacity. The failed module will be fully disconnected and will not impact the remaining operating modules.

Modular

This modular approach means you can size the UPS to exactly fit your needs and simply add modules as your requirements grow. Adding capacity is easy – five 100kW modules can be mounted in one frame and six frames can be configured in parallel to provide a top rating of 3MW. The PW 9500DPA is the only modular UPS on the market that can easily add increments in this way. The resulting savings in power usage over the service life of the UPS are substantial. A further advantage is that the modular approach makes it easy to add redundancy and to further augment availability and reliability.

The PW 9500DPA modules are truly ‘hot swappable’, meaning they can be removed or inserted without risk to the critical load and without the need to power down or transfer to raw main supply. This feature directly addresses continuous up-time requirements, significantly reduces mean time to repair (MTTR), reduces inventory levels of specialised spare parts and simplifies system upgrades. This approach also pays dividends when it comes to serviceability and availability – swapping of online modules means you don’t have to switch off during replacement, so there is no down-time. This all leads to better risk management and an affordable, yet efficient, after sales service, hence the lowest total cost of ownership in its class.

The straightforward concept of the PW 9500DPA simplifies every step of the deployment process – from planning, through installation and commissioning to full use.
This hot swap technology, along with significant reductions in repair time, can help achieve so-called six nines (99.9999%) availability – highly desirable for data centres in pursuit of zero down-time.
KOHLER Uninterruptible Power’s PW 9500DPA operates with an efficiency of up to 96% or greater than 99% in Eco Mode. Its efficiency curve is very flat so there are significant savings in every working regime. This gives this particular product the lowest total cost of ownership of any comparable UPS system.

Further, cooling costs in data centres are substantial. Because it consumes less power, the PW 9500DPA requires less cooling effort, generating further savings. It also has a compact footprint – well suited for data centres, where real estate can be limited and expensive.

Summary

Standardisation and modularisation have revolutionised the design of power back-up systems for data centres. Today, power systems for applications large and small can be built by using the same pre-designed, pre-manufactured and pre-tested sub-systems as building blocks. Standardising UPS systems to serve load segments of different sizes is now a reality. The benefits are clear – faster implementation, flexibility, scalability and controlled capital spending. Standardisation also enables the use of ready-made interfaces and management modules and simplifies integration with other data centre systems, such as KOHLER Uninterruptible Power’s data centre monitoring software.

Data centres of different sizes or in different phases can now apply one standard product. The PW 9500DPA opens this new door because it not only provides load protection for data centres up to 1MW, but it allows easy expansion to a much higher rating (up to 3MW) – and all by adding standardised additional modules. Standardisation and modularity will drive new UPS designs and we will see further refinement of the decentralised parallel architecture, higher maximum power ratings and even more energy efficient solutions.

You may also be interesed in....

Need an answer quickly? Our team of experts are on hand to help, call +65 6302 0702.

More Articles