With businesses looking to patch system and infrastructure gaps exposed by Hurricane Sandy, General Electric (GE) recently introduced a plan to help firms finance the installation and retrofits of electrical backup systems that can prevent even the most miniscule of outages.
Uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems can recognize an electrical outage and provide temporary backup power within two milliseconds, whereas backup generators can often take anywhere from 10 seconds to several minutes to get up and running, said Harry Handlin, director of critical power applications for GE Energy Management.
Most electrical consumers can withstand a short outage, Handlin said.
However, for businesses like hospitals, data centers or financial institutions that have systems requiring a continuous flow of electricity, even a brief outage “could have a large economic impact on the business” or other catastrophic effects, he said.
“If you”™ve got a lot of equipment or processes that cannot withstand that kind of outage, then you use a UPS system in conjunction with a generator,” Handlin said.
A study by New York City business research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan projects revenues related to the shipment and installation of UPS systems worldwide will increase more than 50 percent to $13 billion in 2017 from $8.5 billion in 2007.
The projected growth in revenues is attributed to a significant increase in demand for the services provided by data centers and the accompanying increase in data center facilities, according to the study.
Handlin said the company has seen the greatest demand in the data center industry, with the company estimating that data centers consume about 2 percent of the U.S. electrical grid”™s capacity.
UPS systems range in size “from very small units that would fit under your desk to protect a workstation or personal computer to very, very large systems that can protect a large data center,” Handlin said, adding that most UPS systems are battery-powered.
He said UPS systems are designed to provide backup power for between five and 15 minutes, noting that they would supplement, not replace, a generator.
“If you have a long-term outage, the generator would be doing the heavy lifting,” Handlin said. “The difference is that a UPS basically takes electrical power from either a utility source or from a stored energy source and provides very clean, uninterruptable power to the load.”
GE Energy Management, a newly formed unit of Fairfield-based GE that previously fell under the umbrella of the company”™s GE Energy division, is partnering with the company”™s financial arm to provide financing options for businesses seeking to install new UPS systems or to retrofit existing systems.
Under the new program, businesses can pay for UPS installations or retrofits over an extended period rather than having to pay all of the costs up-front, said Simeon Sessley, competitive intelligence leader at GE Energy Management.
“With this financing, once you”™ve established the need for a critical power system, this is a great way to either upgrade your existing critical power system or put in a new system that”™s really efficient and lowers your operating costs,” Sessley said.
Sessley declined to elaborate on the various UPS systems”™ costs, saying they would depend on each unit”™s configuration and the size of the electrical load they would need to support.
The company is offering a financing program for the first time through its GE Capital unit, which is based in Norwalk.
GE”™s newest UPS systems and retrofits can also provide a significant increase in efficiency for consumers, Handlin said. “You”™ll see on legacy UPS units anywhere from 88 to 92 percent,” he said. With the newer units, “you can get efficiencies up to 99 percent.”
