by Shane Henson — December 20, 2013—Minkels, a brand portfolio of Legrand that manufactures and supplies solutions for data center infrastructure, recently announced the availability of its Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) System engineered specifically for use in data centers.
The Minkels UPS System, which offers modularly structured power capacity from 20 to 120 kVA and is intended for small and medium-sized server rooms, was originally developed by Legrand under the name Archimod UPS System. Legrand UPS solutions are used in business-critical environments, including technical areas for airport lighting and surgery departments in hospitals.
Minkels developed the UPS further into a specific solution for data centers, turning it into an integrated total concept that is suitable for data center environments.
“The Minkels UPS System now offers greater flexibility than the original solution,” said Jules Sommers, a product manager at Minkels. “The new system transcends the boundaries of traditional technical areas, making the UPS extremely well suited to row-based applications in cold corridors.”
The row-based use of an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in a cold corridor configuration in a server room (i.e., in between data center racks with hot and cold corridor) is significantly different to using a UPS in a normal technical area with constant and restricted temperature ranges, notes Minkels. Temperatures can go up quite some way in data centers with cold corridors, whereas the batteries of the UPS must not get warmer than 25 degrees.
For that reason, the development department at Minkels modified the UPS solution and built “cold zone” protection into it. The solution also has a housing created by Minkels specifically for data centers, allowing the solution to be integrated seamlessly with other modular data center solutions from Minkels.
Minkels’ research and development (R&D) team performed extensive exploratory tests to determine the exact usage conditions of the Minkels UPS System in a cold corridor setting, which could then be used for validating the application in a cold corridor, the company says.
“We’re seeing that the data center market is using UPS systems that aren’t suitable for data center applications,” said Sommers. “The exploratory tests will let us guarantee that the Minkels UPS System can function at its optimum under those specific conditions.”
The results of the exploratory thermal tests have been collated in the Thermal Behaviour of a Modular UPS in the Cold Corridor white paper, which can be accessed upon filling out an online form.
The key conclusions drawn by Minkels R&D in the white paper are that the Minkels UPS System functions very well in a cold corridor environment, and that a positive pressure difference of 2 pascals (Pa) is needed to protect the batteries of the UPS and guarantee its performance.
“We advise users of our UPS System in cold corridor configurations to observe a safety margin and maintain a positive pressure difference of 5 pascals,” Sommers added. “The temperature in the cold corridor of the configuration can then get up to 25 degrees Celsius without any problems.”
