Information and communication technology (ICT) multinational Huawei launched its range of uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems in South Africa this month to enable ICT infrastructure, cellular towers and data centres to operate continuously regardless of grid stability.

The range of intelligent UPS systems have zero transfer time, meaning that there are no interruptions to operations and processes running on electronic devices and the systems are able to achieve 97.5% efficiency, notes Huawei Enterprise Business Group Eastern and Southern Africa solutions director Kameshwar Sorda.

The intelligence of the UPSes enables their effective scheduling, recharging and monitoring, as well as enabling them to be managed within the broader data centre infrastructure management system.

To ensure high availability of power supply and backup safety, the systems can also be quick charged. This is done according to the load-rating of the UPS, and can reach up to 30% of the UPS’s rated power. This significantly reduces the recharge time once grid power has returned.

Further, the UPSes can be run in ecomode, which increases their efficiency to 99%. The UPSes also ensure high-power quality by providing protection against surges, noise (small fluctuations in power supply) and lightning strikes, he says.

The range of UPS systems are designed to cater for smaller branches up to large enterprise headquarters and data centres and are designed to overcome disadvantages of efficiency, expansion and availability hindrances, as well as high maintenance costs.

The high-end models offer power density modules of up to 50 kVA/3U, which are almost twice the average power density of other modular UPS products in the market, he notes.

“Higher-power density means the better use of space in data centres, thus the higher-power density modules save up to 50% of space, compared with other UPS products of the same capacity. This advantage is especially important to Internet service provider companies, because it decreases the amount of rack space required for UPS systems by half and the companies can reserve more space for server racks.”

Data centres are the world’s fifth largest energy-consuming industry, and electricity is often the single biggest cost factor in running a data centre. However, stable and reliable power supply is very important for the ICT industry, highlights Sorda.

“Huawei specifically focused on components, modules and systems to improve the overall efficiency of the UPS products. With regard to components, the firm carefully analysed energy dissipation devices through contrast tests and selected the best products from leading manufacturers to reduce losses.

“For modules, Huawei employs patented topology and architecture to reduce energy consumption effectively. Additionally, improved algorithms ensure more accurate software control over hardware to improve systems efficiency,” he explains.

DataCentrix is the UPS marketing partner for the UPSes in South Africa, while Mustek, Pinnacle, First Distribution and Drive Control Corporation are Huawei’s local distribution and support partners. Huawei’s value-added partner is Altech. The firm is working closely with these partners to sell and support the range of new UPSes to Huawei customers, concludes Sorda.