This week, we will attend the Gambica UPS Manufacturers meeting at their new headquarters in London. This is quite an interesting event as it brings together some of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of Uninterruptible Power Supplies in the UK market. The UK UPS group is really a smaller version of the one that meets regularly at a European level but it provides the opportunity for us to be ethnocentric and focus on issues facing the UK power protection market in particular.

There are several problems we can see facing the UK market. One is the ease with which it is possible for a UPS company to import products from the Far East and simple own-lable them. This can provide them with a low-cost entry into the UK market but what about the service support they provide their clients ? Those who have already suffered at the hands of ‘skip-technology’ merchants know that when buying UPS you need to look more closely behind the curtain – at spares and service provision in particular. For this reason at Riello UPS we are seeing an increasing section of the market turning towards recognised UPS brand manufacturers like ourselves rather than importers with strong marketing and branding skills.

We are hoping that with the UK UPS group and Gambica we can somehow dervice a policy and guidelines for anyone interested in UPS to help them avoid the most common pitfalls seen when selecting UPS. More on this in the future we are sure.

Our recently published Power Protection Guide is now available on Amazon.co.uk. Amazon now offers a great facility called ‘Search Inside’ which allows viewers to take a look at the first few pages of any book scanned into their system so that they can look at the content.

Catching up on some emails this weekend brough home to me how small the world is. A Chinese student from Virginia Tech emailed me about the book asking where he could purchase a copy. The content was apparently of interest for his power electronics course. We have also despatched copies of our book to several requesting university libraries around the world including some in India.

This is not the strange if you have read the book by Thomas Friedman titled ‘The World Is Flat: The Globalized World In The Twenty-First Century‘. For anyone interested in what is happening to trade around the world and what will happen, the author provides some interesting insights and comments on the growing economic power of countries such as India and China and the impact they are having on our economies.

The other day I heard that China is the third largest market for Rolls Royce cars and that Aston Martin doubled it sales there in 2006. This is a sure sign of the growing wealth and economic power within China.

In addition to our own Power Protection and Business Continuity Roadshows, Riello UPS will be exhibiting this year at the Convergent Summits – North and South, and the Comms Solution show at the new Wembley Stadium.

The attendance at our roadshows has grown year-on-year and the number of partners wishing to attend continues to expand. So much so that we have now extended the seminar day (which now ends at 4:30pm) and increased the number of venues in the UK.

Why are we also going to exhibitions? Well the Comms Business and Comms Solutions events are very tightly focused – similar to our own events and we hope that we will see a similar mix of attendees – people interested in finding solutions to their power problems and the issues that come from working within a rapidly expanding ICT environment.

An article in the Guardian the other day ‘How trees might not be green in carbon offsetting debate’ discussed some of the latest research done by Govindasamy Bala, an atmospheric scientist at the US Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Apparently if you are going to off-set your carbon emmissions by planting trees then this may not be as effective at reducing global warming as first accepted. It depends on whether the trees are planted in tropical rain forest areas or not. Forests generally tend to trap sunlight and therefore add to global warming. Tropical rain forests, by their nature generate clouds above them, whose cooling effect helps to lower overall temperatures.

So I was wondering if the real way to reduce one’s carbon footprint was simply to focus on energy conservation. A colleague at work (Riello UPS) now turns off every appliance in their home nightly. Not only does this help to offset their carbon footprint but they say, their home seems strangely quieter without the constant low-level hum from electrical devices on standby.

So what we really need is electronic devices that can last say 8-12 hours on a small internal standby power system, with plugs (or socket outlets) that can be remotely controlled or automatically set to turn on/off at preset times – the intelligent home of the future perhaps.

We have been looking at the content of our TEC seminars with a number of recognised institutions in the UK and can confirm that attendance for a number of them qualifies for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) hours. The Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) is one such institution. This is great news as, firstly it provides a further benefit to anyone who attends our Power Protection and Business Continuity seminars, and secondly it reinforces the worth of the content.

This year’s seminar list has recently been publish and the partners list represents some of the leading organisations within the power protection industry. To reserve your place(s) please use the online booking form.