There are 3 types of UPS, depending on the technology of their design:
- single UPS
- distributed (or centralised) parallel UPS
- modular UPS
UPS systems, with optimised energy efficiency, ensure the power demand is as close as possible to the actual requirements, and reduce power losses. In fact, if the efficiency of the UPS is increased, it will give off less heat, which will reduce cooling and consumption losses.
Legrand offers UPS solutions that can achieve efficiency levels of up to 96% (VFI - Voltage Frequency Independent double conversion).
The UPS power factor
UPS power is usually talked about in kVA, but a data center is sized in kW because it is necessary to know how much actual active power will be supplied.
The UPS power factor, in other words the ratio between the active power (in W) and the apparent power (in VA), is therefore a very important indication of its performance. It often reaches 0.8 although high performance UPS systems have a power factor of 0.9 or even 1 (which is the case with Legrand). This means that if 80 kW is needed, an 80 kVA UPS with power factor 1 will suffice, whereas a UPS with power factor of 0.8 at the output should be sized at 100 kVA.
The electrical infrastructure (circuit breaker rating) will therefore be a better size.
