UK businesses overlook 90% of power related problems

POWERVAR warns of the perils of power quality ignorance

Organisations relying solely on off-the-shelf UPS devices to protect against power outages are leaving themselves vulnerable to a multitude of more serious power problems warns power quality experts POWERVAR Ltd. The company argues that whilst power cuts are an obvious power problem they account for less than 10% of power related problems*. The other 90% relate to less visible but potentially more damaging power disturbances like electrical noise, voltage spikes and impulses. These problems can cause electrical devices to lock-up, lose data, or behave unreliably and also significantly reduce the life of electronic equipment.

Electrical reliability is more than just power outages. Because electricity is used to power sensitive mission critical technology the quality of the electrical power is just as important as its availability. Outages affect the average electrical system for about 8.8 hours per year, whilst other invisible power disturbances add approximately 79 more hours per year, where the electrical system does not reliably deliver electrical power that meets the needs of high technology equipment.

"Like an iceberg, it's what you don't see that is most dangerous," comments Kevin Beavan, POWERVAR's UK Managing Director. "This is the single biggest reason why power conditioning, even as part of a UPS solution is so important. People obsess about blackouts but they're such a minor part of the story. Applied in the right manner, POWERVAR power conditioners and/or power conditioned UPS solutions eliminate these hidden problems and add much needed reliability to the electrical power delivered by the power company."

"POWERVAR has a proud track record of diagnosing and resolving problems for power-dependent customers. These cover applications such as medical imaging, clinical and analytical diagnostics, retail, information technology/telecommunications, semiconductor manufacturing, industrial automation and digital printing and graphics," explains George Lannert, President & CEO, POWERVAR. "Most businesses relying on power availability invest in UPSs to protect against outages and that is where their power protection strategy ends. Our experience has shown us that as much as 90% of all power problems are a direct result of poor power quality - something most UPS don't help with at all."

POWERVAR designs, engineers, and manufactures power protection solutions including power conditioning products and uninterruptible power managers (UPMs). As well as standard UPS functions POWERVAR's UPMs are also equipped with additional features to improve mains power quality and offer an advanced level of protection. These features include an isolation transformer to guarantee delivery of completely conditioned power, the ability to select operating voltage and automatic adjustment for line voltage changes.