The Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system is the only savior during conventional power outages. Thus, maintaining these systems is crucial to safeguard the connected devices and equipment and ensure access to an uninterrupted power supply until regular power resumes. As a leading online supplier of these lifeline systems, in this blog post, we’ll educate you on the various aspects of UPS system maintenance, including the benefits, risks, whats, and whens.
Before that, if you ask us, “What is UPS maintenance?”, this is our expert answer—it is the process of analyzing or examining your UPS system for likely issues and taking corrective or preventive actions to ensure seamless function with efficiency and reliability.
Why UPS maintenance is essential?
Regular and timely maintenance of UPS systems helps you,
- Increase the longevity: Increased uptime and usage hours
- Optimize the performance: Harnesses the power fluctuations, spikes, or surges.
- Reduce the downtime risks: Unexpected downtime can be prevented
- Ensure continued power supply: Constant power backup for continued operations.
- Save the costs: Avoids unnecessary or emergency repair expenses.
On the contrary, if you fail to maintain your UPS, you have to face the following risks and consequences:
- UPS failure: This may lead to UPS battery replacement in case you fail to check regularly.
- Data loss: A broken power supply affects the connected devices and the data stored.
- Low productivity: Low maintenance leads to low productivity or performance.
- Expensive repairs: Unexpected breakdown of the system leads to huge repair costs.
These benefits and risks prove why maintenance is quintessential for UPS devices.
The two major types of UPS maintenance that you must know
- Corrective maintenance: This is done post-identifying or experiencing a system failure or breakdown which may involve an undesired downtime or power interruption.
- Preventive maintenance: These are scheduled maintenance or services that are consistent and help avoid the need for corrective maintenance or repair. For this, you can simply follow the UPS manufacturer’s recommendations or guidelines—may include monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual checks.
Who should you count for UPS maintenance services?
The primary stakeholders accountable for this are the facilities and operations manager. Based on the maintenance checklist, they can perform scheduled and preventive repairs, cross-checks, and maintenance services. Also, with the help of IT managers, they can check the connectivity to IT infrastructure and other connected devices.
In general, the checklist includes cleaning, battery capacity check, alarm monitoring, load distribution, corrosion testing, scheduling the next service window, etc.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the types of maintenance servicing in UPS Solutions?
Based on the severity and the time of service, there could be two types—minor (once in a quarter) and major (once in a year). While the former involves simple visual inspection, cleaning, and small repairs, the latter involves analyzing the load, the battery operations, etc.
- How to calculate the efficiency of a UPS?
The performance of UPS equipment is measured in terms of efficiency percentage. It is calculated by dividing the output (i.e., the power delivered by the UPS) by the input (i.e., the power consumed). Then, multiply the obtained value by 100.
- What are the regular maintenance frequencies?
The frequency of maintenance service varies greatly based on the model, the manufacturer, the operating environment, the average load, and the average output. So, follow the standard checklist and the recommendations from the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems manufacturer for the right frequency.
