The new battery racks have been developed in order to enable UPS system providers to meet growing data centre demand for lithium-ion UPS systems that can deliver high power for a short period of time at a lower cost than UPS systems using lead-acid batteries.
Developers and operators of data centres are increasingly installing backup generators to produce power during long power outages. These long-term backup generators decrease the need for UPS systems that can provide a high level of power for a long period of time, as these facilities now require high power for only a short period of time (less than 15 minutes), until the backup generators can come online. However, most UPS systems use lead-acid batteries, and lead-acid batteries’ low power discharge rates force data center developers and operators to purchase high capacity, long duration UPS systems to address their facilities’ short-term, high power needs. This is leading data centre developers and operators to seek new, more affordable UPS systems that require fewer batteries than lead-acid UPS systems to deliver the same amount of power.
In addition, lead-acid UPS systems have large footprints, are heavy, require high maintenance, need significant cooling and ventilation and have to be replaced every 3-5 years.
The K-UPS battery rack utilises the company’s high performance lithium-ion UHP NMC batteries, which feature up to a 10 C-rate compared to a 2 C-rate for most lead-acid batteries or a 4 C-rate for most other lithium-ion batteries (C-rate measures the rate a battery charges or discharges relative to its maximum capacity).
This high-power output enables UPS system providers to use fewer batteries in a UHP NMC battery UPS system than lead-acid or other lithium-ion battery UPS systems, while delivering the same amount of power. By using fewer batteries in their UPS systems, UPS system providers can lower the overall cost of these systems for data centre developers and operators, while still providing them with the high power, short duration performance they need.
“Though the UPS market is still dominated by lead-acid batteries, rising data centre interest in more affordable, compact, long-lasting, lightweight UPS systems is growing the market for high power UPS systems using lithium-ion batteries” said Ike Hong, vice president of Kokam’s Power Solutions Division. “Our new K-UPS battery racks use our UHP NMC batteries to deliver UPS system providers the industry-leading power discharge rate they need to build high–power UPS systems with the price, size, footprint, weight, lifetime and other characteristics that data centre developers and operators increasingly demand.”
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