A 240 kVA UPS

We visited Dell International Services call center in Whitefield,

Bangalore, to see the APC Silcon UPS in action. It’s a 240 kVA UPS, and there are two units running simultaneously sharing the load so that if one fails, the other takes up the entire load.

The call center handles Dell’s tech support calls from the US and Europe. They work round the clock in 12 overlapping shifts adjusting the manpower depending on the number of calls that come in. That’s 400-500 PCs load staying switched on at all times. There are at any point of time 400 people in this Dell building. Their power requirement is to provide battery backup to all the systems for about 15 min, during which they can start the generator backup. The local Electricity Board, of course, provides the mains supply. 

The Silcon UPS is a 3-phase online system that makes use of delta conversion technology. It uses a huge battery bank with 200AH SMF batteries. It has an LCD console to let you check out info like the input and output voltages. There are DB-25 RS232 ports for interfacing with your network.

It uses monitoring software–PowerChute network shutdown–for performing unattended system shutdowns over the network. The UPS has a

Web/SNMP management card that works with this software, allowing you to configure the UPS over the Web using a Web browser. This allows the facility manager at Dell to do remote power monitoring from anywhere, including home over the weekends. You can also configure it to send customized responses according to various power problems. It’s almost one year since the call center became operational. According to Dell, they haven’t faced any problems with it. No battery replacements yet. 

Price: Rs 4,950,000 for two such units with 15 min runtime

Contact: APC, Bangalore. Tel: 080-2272496. E-mail: sales@kendratech.com