Power backup option

Hi all,
I am looking for a power back up option for the systems in my office. We have around 20 systems,because situations like power failure should not affect my systems, and the company’s working. So, should I go for solar or UPS, which would be a better back up option? My friend advised me to get the services from Staticon, http://www.staticon.ca/, but has any one used their services? Or, any other suggestions ?

There are many UPS solutions with deep cycle lead acid batteries lasting guranteed 15 years
Typically industrial quality 12V 100Ah types cost 200-250$

It depends how much outtake time you want to be able to be with power and how much power you draw on average

There are relatively small solutions with 8-20 12V 100Ah lead batteries and an inverter rack with 5kVA

UPS, not solar. One place I worked on was the national HQ for a huge company. Their building was fed mains power from 2 different substations and had a room full of wet-cells. According to their Tech guy the batteries gave them about 20 minutes which was enough to safely close down their computers. No idea of cost but I’m sure it wasn’t in the ‘small business’ range of prices.

Solar isn’t bad, but it’s inconsistent so you need added capacity to ensure a certain power level. Then there’s the complexity of the install, panel maintenance, and a non-specified battery life. Mains-powered UPS can be several smaller ‘plug-and-play’ systems or one pro-installed large one with tested and known battery lifespans which will generally be more reliable and cheaper too.

Phil

Budget and size requirements are key figures needed here. I’d go with APC, now Schneider, you will probably be looking at the SUVT systems, maybe upto a Symettra PX or down to the smaller range, the RX iirc…

Proven units with massive company behind them so you should always have support and engineers avalible.

Dual feed everything you can, if you can have seperate UPSs with seperate supplies to each side of the rack. If you need extended run times then you should look at a smallish battery but with generator supply to UPS.

The main things that kill UPSs, or more likely batteries, are the amount of discharges and ambient temperature. So install your UPS in a nice cool place and ensure you have the unit setup correctly for your expected voltage windows. Voltage optimisation is getting popular here and that can throw up some unexpected issues if the UPS isn’t programmed for it.

When I worked for the german Telekom one of the biggest USW I had were 64x 2V 8000 or 12000Ah lead batteries
With 3000mm2 copper rails

To refill water you needed a small ladder as there were about as tall as I am with 1.85m

The big ones were 128V 600A inverters
The smaller UPS had 128V 60A racks of 1 to 4 60A

All buildings had 2 types of sockets red for USV and white for normal

Diesel generator.

yeah I forgot the 2 500kVA Disel generators for the big batteries

They go much much bigger Lexel, I will be replacing 8 x 1.2MW rotary UPS’s in the new year on a single site.

Another single site is currently ordering 120 UPS’s, granted they are smaller and vary but between 250KVA and 1MW each!

Battery powered UPS is only intended to last while the computers are shut down in an orderly fashion or the time it takes for the diesel powered backup generators to come online. Also make sure that the system consists of a number of independent units where at least one can fail without interrupting the power flow.

I have never even heard of using solar as a source of backup power. If you invest in such an expensive setup, why not run on solar all the time and use the power from mains as the backup?