I read an article in the trade press last week about North London football club Tottenham Hotspur cutting its carbon emissions by 400 tonnes in a single year and at the same time implementing energy saving methods that resulted in the club being around 25% cheaper to run. It got me thinking: much as businesses (and business owners in particular) like to be ethical, it’s that last bit – the 25% cost saving – that spurs (pardon the pun) them on to take energy saving seriously.

But is it possible, as commercial organisation, to maintain high standards of quality and customer service while saving energy? This is a special dilemma for power protection customers whose primary need is to provide a continuous source of critical power and ensure business continuity in the face of potential power cuts and power problems. Can energy saving really become a priority for them?

The Premiere League club has been working in conjunction with the 10:10 scheme, an organisation set up by film director Franny Armstrong in 2009 after making the iconic climate change film, starring the late, great Pete Postlethwaite as a man living in the devastated future of 2055, looking back at old footage from our time and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

10:10’s premise, rather than aiming at staggering targets favoured by ambitious policy-makers of 80% carbon cuts by 2050, is to try and get everyone to aim for 10% carbon reductions per year?

Tottenham employs high-powered sun lamps to keep the turf at its White Heart Lane ground in premier league condition all year round. Giant banks of flood lamps are also used to illuminate the on-pitch action on gloomy winter days or evenings. The club reduced its hefty electric bill by firstly replacing 136 high-powered lights with energy efficient models and although it worked out as a six-figure investment, it is this that has enabled the 25% reduction in running costs.

New lighting controls, including time switches and motion sensors have also helped save on energy. Heating controls on training ground washing machines were deployed, alongside push taps to help save energy and water. The club also analysed and revised its transportation needs to lessen its carbon footprint and now directors take public transport to away games instead of private jets. Fans are playing their part to: after a big publicity push, the majority arrive at matches by public transport rather than private car.

Working alongside The Carbon Trust, 10:10 has developed an Energy Saving checklist offering simple tips to business such as:

• Make someone within your organization responsible for energy saving initiatives and ask them to draw up an action plan.

• Measure, log and analyse how much energy you are using and where it is being guzzled. Energy bills may not give you enough information and you may want to look into some form of energy management.

• Conduct an energy walk round, which will not only confirm the second point but give you a visual picture of where energy is being used in your business.

• Upgrade business critical equipment – old equipment is much less energy efficient and will guzzle far more power than new or modern appliances.

• Switch off lights once there is enough daylight to work by, or in rooms or areas that are not being used. This may seem obvious but you’d be surprised at how many lights stay on in empty toilet cubicles all day!

There are ten tips in all and I won’t include them all but this one is a particular favourite:

• do not locate photocopiers in air-conditioned areas as the heat it will produce will make the air-conditioning work harder and user more electricity.

So, the answer to my earlier question (it would seem) is a resounding “Yes”. If you would like information about energy saving eco UPS, visit our website.

If you are in the market for UPS power protection – and this is the first time you have thought about it – trawling the internet for information can be frustrating and you could end up more confused than ever. It’s a big subject, and a specialist one.

UPS manufacturers are a great source of information but much of it is either technical (geared towards electrical engineers rather than end users) or biased towards a certain type of technology.

If you’ve already got a UPS installed, you’ll have a good idea (based on past experience) of what to look for when it comes to upgrading or replacing it. However, in the past few years the power protection industry has undergone an evolutionary process of change and development of UPS products, solutions and services, driven largely by the desire for greater energy efficiency and lower lifetime costs of UPS systems overall. Advances in technology and manufacturing have resulted in smaller, more powerful products with fewer component parts and which are more reliable and sophisticated than their forebears.

Which UPS should I choose and where can I go for objective information?

Sadly, there are few places you can get information like this for free. UPS specialist resellers and manufacturers are running businesses from which they need to make a profit and they usually either charge for consulting advice or give it for free if they can then sell you their products. You may not be at the stage where you are ready to choose your UPS manufacturer or their products so, what can you do?

As luck would have it, we’ve written a book: The Power Protection Guide – the design, installation and operation of uninterruptible power supplies, which was published in 2007. It’s available from Amazon, all good booksellers and our own estore. At 290 pages, it details all of the elements you need to think about in terms of UPS power protection – and although our publisher insists on a cover price of £28-95, it offers great value for money and may even save money for you in the long-term. Armed with knowledge, you will be in a better position to get what you need and negotiate a good price.

Covering such items as criticality, UPS topologies and designs, UPS sizing and selection, online UPS designs, building in UPS reliability and resilience, batteries and alternative UPS back up solutions, UPS and generators, UPS monitoring and remote control, UPS logistics and installation, UPS warranties, maintenance and service, the book provides a handy tool for anyone responsible for assuring the delivery of critical power supplies for the continuity of their business – whatever business that might be. We’ve purposely incorporated a detailed index to make it easy to reference and appended some useful forms and worked examples. It is illustrated throughout with clear diagrams, charts and graphs.

In 1995, the European Union set out to harmonise the single-phase mains supply voltage across countries. Prior to that, variation existed country-to-country from 220, 230 or 240Vac 50Hz. It was down to manufacturers of electrical equipment to optimise their products for each country or region. 230Vac became the nominal standard (prior to which the UK operated at 240Vac). Three-phase mains nominal voltage was harmonised to 400Vac.

A problem arose because many large electricity consumers found that much of the electrical equipment they use to run their businesses now operates inefficiently at the new rating and thus wastes considerable electricity each year.

Voltage optimisation technology providers stepped in to stem the problem by developing technology that sits between mains power and connected loads to provide a steady-state 230Vac or 400Vac supply to ensure optimal load voltage efficiency, whether resistive or inductive/capacitive loads.

My question is: can it be recommended for mission critical applications and is such technology really the best option when UPS themselves are the ultimate voltage optimiser?

Firstly, UPS protect connected loads from breaks in mains supply AND from mains-borne power problems such as sags, surges, brownouts and so on, which a voltage optimisers cannot do as effectively.

Secondly, although most online UPS are installed as 230Vac (single-phase) or 400Vac (three-phase) output, they can be configured manually to provide other voltages such as: 220/230/240Vac or 380/400/415Vac. Loads are automatically supplied by a UPS with the level of voltage and current required to perform at their optimal frequency. UPS also provide battery back up and/or connection to an alternative energy source (such as a generator) to protect loads in the event of a mains failure. Today’s online UPS can also achieve operating efficiency figures of 96% and higher (if operated in certain power modes).

Voltage optimisers carry a lower capital cost compared with UPS but they do not provide the higher levels of power protection required by the critical loads that run today’s always on businesses. In my view, UPS are better at the job of both power protection and voltage optimisation.

In November, the Duke was reported in the Sunday Telegraph as having a pop at renewable technologies, specifically wind turbines, which he declared “Absolutely useless.” According to the newspaper, his comments were directed at a representative from a wind turbine manufacturer to whom he declared: “they are absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace.”

His comments are unfortunate given the UK government’s widely broadcast renewable ambitions and support for onshore as well as offshore wind farms.

As you know, Riello UPS is a big fan of renewable energy, particularly as part of a mix of supply options, and particularly Solar. All new technologies need a subsidy to get them off the ground and solar is a case in point. In countries, such as Germany, where it has been subsidised for almost a decade, it has really taken off and as an industry will soon be able to stand on its own two feet. Wind farms (on and offshore) are the same and there are many instances where they are established and offering competitive enough electricity prices but there are many installations that still have some catching up to do and are reliant on subsidies.

On that note, I read an interesting article in Electrical Review talking about the ETI (Energy Technologies Institute) taking wave energy to the next level with a project to design and demonstrate a low-cost wave energy converter system.

Extracting energy from waves using wave energy converters (WECs) is one method of exploiting the energy potential of the seas around the UK – and as we are an island, why not? However, capturing as much energy from waves as possible while building technologies that will withstand the harsh environment is not easy and this project will identify areas for improvement and new developments. It is being commissioned in two phases, the first is looking for design concepts for wave energy converter systems and the second will see the designs being developed and demonstrated. Requests for proposals have been issued for any organisations wanting to get involved. Updates and more details are available at www.energyytechnologies.co.uk.

Ranked organisations count among them some of the largest energy users in the UK; large businesses and public sector organisations that use more than 6000 Megawatt Hours of electricity a year.

The scheme is intended to help the UK meet its carbon reduction targets and encourage large energy users to be smarter about how and where they consume electricity so that it can be reduced.

At Riello UPS, we think anything that encourages users to focus on reducing energy consumption is a great idea and we help our customers do so (and thus reduce their energy bills) while securing power continuity. We do that by providing products that are efficient, reliable and functional. I cannot help thinking, however, that the UK’s efforts to reduce energy consumption overall and meet carbon reduction targets could be given a real boost if energy suppliers started installing smart meters as standard. Only those that stand to benefit the most from so doing can afford to install smart meters and while that is the case we will continue to see the waste that is associated with a haphazard approach to measuring energy consumption.

For more information about UPS and power protection, visit our website.

An article on climaterocks.com earlier this month stated that despite American homes being cluttered with electronic consumer gadgets (Smartphones, tablets, wireless routers that run all the time, and TVs that light up in high definition), demand for electricity is levelling off.

Over the next ten years, experts are predicting residential energy use in the USA will actually fall, the first time it has happened since Thomas Edison’s invention of the electric light bulb.

Edison’s light bulb has now been replaced by more efficient types of lighting and electrical devices of all kinds are much more energy efficient than they used to be. Manufacturers have focused on that aspect as part of their research and development of new products for the past ten years. There are other factors too: new homes are more energy efficient and old ones are being made so by home energy savings programmes. Plus, utility companies say it is symptomatic of the economic slow down and not something to worry about for the future.

As energy costs continue to rise and users become more educated about their use of electricity, there is every indication that this will happen in the UK and Europe too. This may lead to the big six energy utility companies having to reinvent themselves and their business models, and perhaps even for the first time in years, reducing their tariff charges to encourage us to use more.

It’s a nice thought but I wouldn’t bet the house on it just yet.

If you would like more information on UPS and selecting energy efficient power protection, visit Riello AROS UPS’s website.

The government has set down a target to reduce domestic electricity emissions by 34% by 2020 but the Energy Saving Trust says that we will fall far short of this is we don’t cool our love affair with gadgets.

The number of domestic devices and appliances in the average UK household increased by three and a half times between 1990 and 2009, according to the report, and overall energy consumption from consumer electronic goods rose by more than 600% between 1970 and 2009.

Reported in The Guardian last month, a spokesperson for the Trust pointed out that consumers would never buy a car without checking out its fuel-efficiency first and yet we are happy to fill our houses with electronic consumer good without sparing one thought for their electricity consumption and how much it will cost. “People need to be educated about these things.” She said.

It’s not just consumers either. In business many people now work from home or use equipment at home and in their personal time that is provided for business use, such as laptops, smartphones, GPS navigation systems (that require home charging), tablet PCs and so forth. Between 2000 and 2009, electricity use from home computing more than doubled and the number of devices in Britain’s homes rose from 30,000 to 65,000.

Five years ago, the Energy Saving Trust issued a report The Rise of the Machine, which found that the number of electrical appliances, products and gadgets people typically own had trebled since the 1970s. Although such appliances are more efficient now, electricity consumption has doubled between 1970 and 2002.

The Energy Saving Trust does good work, no doubt about that, but trying to get we -the people – to give up our love of gadgets is akin to King Canute trying to hold back the tide. As we move ever deeper into the technological age, our love of (and use of) devices will continue to rise and unfortunately gadgets these days are mostly electronic. It’s up to the electronics industry and technology inventors to ensure they are the most energy efficient they can be, but I agree, users should be more aware of the implications of using such implements on electricity consumption and educated as to responsible energy use.

If you would like to know more about energy efficient UPS, or any of our comprehensive range of power protection products and services, visit Riello AROS UPs’s website.

Electricity from renewables comprised 6.3% of the UK’s total energy consumption when the figures were announced in April 2010 and that figure rose to 9.6% this year, a healthy 50% increase.

Supplies from hydro and wind rose by 74.7% and 120% respectively but renewables still only supply around 10% of the UK’s total energy needs and that has got to change if we are to meet our carbon reduction targets alongside our growing energy needs.

However, the wind industry is making a tremendous contribution to the nations energy supply and is now providing enough power to supply nearly 3.25 million homes in the UK.

Electricity sourced from nuclear generation accounted for 21.3% of total according to DECC. So, despite the massive rises in low carbon energy and encouraging growth in the renewables industries, we are still relying on fossil fuels for two thirds of our energy needs.

As you know, here at Riello we are big fans of renewable energy and have developed our range of UPS and ancillary products to support renewable energy installations such as Solar (with our AROS solar inverters). We are continuing to bring products and solutions to market that support the drive towards renewables.

Colocation players have the same desire to be green but are somewhat constrained by the needs and demands of the customer.

Bourne out of the realisation that computer equipment can withstand hotter temperatures, a recent initiative by collocation data centres is to run warm in an attempt to lessen the need for cooling and use less electricity. Ambient temperatures of around 21 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit) – often as high as 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) are now acceptable. The lower the temperature, the more cooling is required to maintain it, thus more energy is being consumed and the whole system is less efficient. However, there are two major problems with running data centres at higher temperatures.

Firstly, customer comfort: colocation customers need to visit their servers and do so regularly. They are used to data centres being a certain temperature and comfortable. However, what’s comfortable for machines is not always pleasant for humans.

The second problem with running data centres or server rooms at higher temperatures is how it affects UPS batteries. The batteries will continue to work effectively but the higher temperatures (above 20/21 Celsius) will compromise their design life and they will need to be replaced more often. This necessity will significantly increase the lifetime costs of the facility and UPS system.

Flywheel UPS is ideal for this type of application as it is not temperature sensitive like batteries. It will quite happily operate at 10 Celsius as it will at 40 Celsius. It can also offer high efficiency, low running and maintenance costs, the lowest possible PUE ratios and highest operational resilience. Riello’s Master MHF VDC 100-500kVA Flywheel UPS has been designed specifically for critical environments such as data centres, hospitals and large industrial installations. It is a scaleable system, incorporating a VDC or VDC-XE flywheel, which requires 50% less floor space than a similarly rated, traditional UPS and batteries. Flywheels have a much longer design life (20 years) than traditional UPS batteries and a far lower total cost of ownership (TCO). It also offers an instantaneous recharge time. To find out more, visit our website.

When you’re talking about components of an electrical back-up system – the cornerstone of a data centre’s livelihood – any alternative has to be the real deal and proven, not just a pretender. Some of the technologies being talked about now include: Ultracapacitors (or Ultracaps as they are colloquially known), flow batteries, superconducting magnetic energy storage and lithium-ion batteries but none has yet managed to gain a foothold in the UPS market place.

Here at Riello we are keen market watchers of new and alternative technologies so we keep a constant eye on developments. Here’s an overview of where some of these up-and-coming technologies are:

Ultracapacitors

Ultracaps are electric double layer capacitors, a promising technology that at some point may give orthodox energy storage a run for its money. The way they work is that they store energy at the surface of two carbon plates with opposite charges, separated by a sheet of paper dipped in a liquid electrolyte.

The advantages for the data centre environment are that they require less floor space than their UPS battery equivalents; their maintenance needs are low; they can operate in higher temperatures (and therefore need less cooling) and they use more environmentally-friendly materials in their manufacture.

However, the disadvantages are that the capital cost of buying an Ultracap at today’s prices means that they are not a cost-effective alternative. They also have a short ride-through time (less than 10 seconds), which is not enough for critical data centre environments. Also, as they are a new technology, they may require specialist engineering and not many engineers will be familiar (or experienced) at working on Ultracaps.

Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage

Or SME as they are known; is only just in research and development so is nowhere near ready for the open market but it uses a coil made of superconducting material, which is cryogenically cooled below its critical temperature, thus giving it zero resistance. A dc current is applied to the coil, which creates a magnetic field. The coil’s lack of resistance prevents the energy from dissipating as heat and allows for energy to be stored in magnetic form until required.

The advantages of SMEs include an absence of harmful materials and mechanical simplicity, which makes it more reliable. However, as with Ultracaps they currently carry a high capital cost and short back up time (again, only around 10 seconds). Also, their requirement for a cryogenic cooling system to keep them at below critical temperature would render their lifetime costs hugely expensive.

Sodium Nickel Chloride Batteries

There are a few companies planning to launch such batteries on to the market within the next few years, such as GE, for example, which is planning to bring to the data centre UPS market an energy storage solution with zero cooling requirements. As you know, UPS batteries do not respond well to temperatures outside of a constant 21-25 degrees centigrade and so the ambient temperature around them has to be controlled.

GE’s battery (it claims) will also offer a design life of 20 years, long discharge rates and will serve both ac and dc loads.

It has always been hard to compete with standard VRLA or Sealed Lead Acid batteries but then flywheel UPS started offering a real, commercial alternative some years ago and has gained real ground in the data centre market. Compared with the alternatives outlined above, flywheel UPS offers low initial and lifetime costs, a long lifecycle, high storage density, wide operating energy range, and environmental advantages. Flywheel UPS is also highly efficient and offers a compact footprint.

In July 2011, Riello AROS UPS unveiled details of a new range of flywheel UPS. Master MHF series is a modular, scalable, power protection system incorporating flywheel UPS technology. It is ideal for eco-targeted data centres looking to get the most out of their UPS investment.

The new Master MHF series offers 99% efficiency and is Smart-grid ready. It also boasts a 20-year design life. More details can be found on our website.