Power Generation

We offer a range of custom built stand-by generators ranging from 150–2200kVA with prime movers being Perkins, Volvo, John Deere, MTU and Daewoo-Doosan on the larger sizes. Stamford, Marelli or Leroy Somer alternators are used across the range. We manufacture natural gas motors according to ISO3046 up to 400kW, manufacturing automatic mains failure and standard key start control panels, trailers for mobile units (SABS APPROVED), sound and weatherproof canopy sets and sound attenuation of plant rooms.

Our fully equipped Generator Test Bay in the Manufacturing Division ensures all equipment undergoes the relevant test methods and procedures to meet full compliance in the marketplace.The test facility has been equipped to conduct full mechanical load testing, which allows your motor’s real power to be rigorously tested, as temperature rises and where full load current and full load speed are accurately measured up to 2000Amps to achieve efficiency in the equipment.

Highlights

• Sound and excellent build quality.
• Flexible lead times to meet customer needs.
• Fully customised attenuation and exhaust systems.
• We have a team of technical experts that are available for assistance in design and development of genset and back-up power systems.
• We have the ability to offer site installation and commissioning through a preferred installer.

Warranty

• 1 year warranty and maintenance with purchase.
• Additional maintenance contract is available.

Our diesel powered generator sets are the first choice when it comes to standby and emergency power systems. Our generators are powered by Perkins diesel engines but are also available in Volvo and Cummins and can be manufactured with a choice of Stamford, Mecc Alte and Leroy Somer alternators.

In addition our generator sets can be fully customised to deliver the versatility, reliability and efficiency you require.

Product Details

The canopies are designed using high density flameproof foam to ensure low noise levels.
The enclosures are powder coated and weatherproofed to withstand the harshest environments.

The user-friendly Deepsea Controllers make these generators leaders in the field.

• Units can also be built onto trailers, for mobile solutions.
• Product requires standard maintenance.
• Maintenance contracts available.

In general the diffusion of UPS systems derives from an increasingly greater dependence on electrical energy and the need to protect sophisticated equipment, data and processes that are critical for companies. Power electronics is involved and focused to the design and development of static UPS systems with increasingly higher performance levels that allow for adequate energy savings and a lower environmental impact.

Power Solutions

Today there is an increasingly pressing need for a continuous, quality power

supply. Indeed the devices to power up have an increasingly key, critical role for businesses, for people’s safety, for data storage and processing and for communications.

After all, these functions are carried out by sophisticated and sensitive devices that may be affected by the disturbance coming from the mains power supply.There are various types of electrical events that constantly endanger electronic equipment, as there are various effects on the availability of the loads (for instance computer systems):

Choosing the UPS

To choose the correct UPS size, it is necessary to know the following parameters:

Clearly the input parameters must be compatible with the mains and the output parameters must be compatible with the loads to be powered and protected.

As for the discrepancies from acceptable nominal values, one of the few clear and internationally acknowledged notes regarding the power supply of electronic devices (namely computer-based equipment) is the ITIC (Information Technology Industry Council) curve.This represents the updated version of the CBEMA (Computer Business Electronic Manufacturer’s Association) note, also implemented in the ANSI/IEEE Standard 446-1995:“IEEE Recommended practice for emergency and stand-by power for industrial and commercial applications”.

The ITIC immunity curve (formerly known as the CBEMA curve) was created with an exclusive reference to Information Technology Equipment (ITE), i.e. basically PCs and similar products, and is based on a simple assessment on the width (higher or lower than the nominal voltage) and the duration of the disturbance of the power supply voltage.

These curves indicate the percentage voltage variations in relation to the nominal value (230V) that are accepted by the devices powered in relation to the duration of these variations.

In the figure, the white area represents all the situations in which the device is not affected by the voltage variation. Instead the coloured areas represent situations where they may lead to malfunctions or even failures.

Simply, it is evident that the greater the voltage variation the shorter the time the electronic devices can tolerate it without being affected.

Batteries

Moreover, Lead batteries can provide high current levels and operate discontinuously without necessarily reaching the end of discharge, without being affected by a “memory effect” like other types of batteries.

Battery manufacturers declare the “Expected Life Time” of batteries.

The most common cases for SLA batteries are: 5-6 years (Standard Life batteries) and 10-12 years (Long Life batteries).

This is an indicative value and is referred to standard working and environmental conditions that may not necessarily coincide with batteries’ real operating conditions.

As for their the chemical nature in energy is storing and supplying, batteries are very sensitive to environmental conditions and to how they are used.

In particular, high temperatures can drastically reduce batteries’ life.

In general, the nominal operating temperature of VRLA Batteries is 20- 25°C, for every 10°C the life expectancy is halved.

As for their use, the duration and intensity of the discharges and recharges influence the batteries’ life. Excessively intense or low currents, very long and deep discharges, intense and prolonged recharges, etc. can reduce batteries’ life and even damage them.

To avoid these phenomena, modern UPS systems have sophisticated battery management algorithms that optimise their use by monitoring and dynamically adapting voltages and currents in order to prevent deep discharges and conduct effective and safe recharges. As well as extending their life, a “smart” battery management also allows to constantly monitor their status and reduces consumption levels associated with their recharge.

Due to the phenomenon of self-discharge, batteries age and deteriorate even when they are not used for extended periods of time.To avoid incurring a permanent loss of their capacity, it is recommended to not leave the batteries disconnected for more than 6-10 months. After this time, even new batteries that were initially in good condition may have recharging problems. In addition to self-discharge, also storage temperature negatively affects batteries’ life.

Modern UPS systems allow to prevent this issue by managing to keep the batteries charged even when they are off (battery recharge in stand-by). So even when not used, one just needs to keep the UPS connected to the mains to keep the batteries active and alive.

To perform its functions the UPS must always be connected to the batteries and promptly report any disconnection or malfunctioning. Modern UPS systems have various automatic battery testing and monitoring functions and are able to inform the user about possible faults in order to prevent any problems even before the batteries reach the end of their life. However, we recommend conducting periodical checks and maintenance on the batteries (at least once a year). It is also advisable to get a new set of batteries before they run out.

When choosing the batteries, to reach a certain back-up time it is important to also consider the recharging time. Of course, with UPS systems with the same nominal power, the greater the back-up time, the higher the number of batteries and, as a result, the longer the recharge time. To evaluate the right amount of batteries, it is recommended calculating the back-up time based on the actual load to protect, rather than the nominal power of the UPS.

Smart Charge - Advanced Battery Management

To ensure power supply continuity in the event of a power failure, the batteries must be charged and in good condition.Therefore, a part of the energy absorbed by the UPS must be directed to charging the batteries. This is an additional consumption that cannot be eliminated.To reduce and optimise the cost of charging the batteries, UPS systems with an intelligent charging system (Smart Charge) are used.

This system is based on the direct measurement of the operating parameters (voltage and current) of the batteries and their variations in order to monitor the status of the battery in real time.The recharge follows a cycle consisting of several stages, whose duration and intensity depends on the state of the batteries.This advanced battery charge system has the benefit of having a fast charging time and the batteries are always charged constantly monitored.

At the same time this system does not stress the batteries, because when they reach their full charge, the charging intensity decreases until it reaches zero. In other words, the smart battery charge system optimises energy absorption by limiting it to the amount actually required by the real charging status of the batteries. Moreover, it has the additional effect of extending the batteries’ performance and life.

Intelligent battery charge system (Smart Battery Charger)

The “Smart Charger” three-stage intelligent charging system considerably extends batteries’ life by even 50%, thereby halving the number of times they need to be replaced and environmental pollution due to their disposal.

Calculating the economic impact caused by potential downtime may seem a complicated task. As a matter of fact, the productivity of modern companies is closely associated with that of information systems, so often unavailable information systems lead to downtime.To get an idea of the cost of downtime due to electrical issues, one just needs to multiply the unavailable time by the cost of the salaries of employees that depend on the system and add the lost profit (total profit/unavailability time). These costs must then be added to any costs required to restore the system, which instead depend on the frequency of the events and on how serious they are.

The main players in the UPS market have a number of distinguishing

features, which need to be considered before making a choice: from the commitment in the Research and Development of power protection solutions to the focus on low energy consumption and the compliance with environmental regulations to the solutions aiming at reducing running costs and increasing flexibility and, in some cases, the compact design and appearance of the devices.

From a marketing point of view, customer satisfaction, maintenance processes (which must involve periodical technical check-ups), how fast support services are provided are clearly key elements and true distinguishing elements of the product offer. Basically UPS systems have three features: Safety, Reliability and Availability.

Distributed Architecture

Modular Architecture

Modular architecture is an interesting solution to protect a company’s key areas. The modules are UPS systems that contribute all together to powering
the load:

System Size

Sizing with Power-Supply Units

Power-supply units may show malfunctions if associated with a UPS without a input PFC circuit, as an harmonic distortion of the current could cause considerable disturbance to the alternator, which could lead to a shutdown.

For conventional UPS systems, to avoid this potential issue it is necessary to use a generator 1.5 times or twice the size in relation to the power of the UPS, which would result in wasted energy and money. Therefore also in this case it is necessary to examine the architecture of the UPS systems correctly.

When determining the size of an electrical system, special attention should be placed on selecting the cables. Indeed, it is necessary to take account various elements such as voltage, current, the length of the line, the ambient temperature and the intended type of installation.

The IEC 60364 standard defines the capacities of the conductors to be used for fixed installations and takes into account the elements listed above.

Size of the Neutral Cable

In three-phase distribution systems, where UPS systems with high harmonic distortion or no input PFC circuit are used, there is often strong unbalance on the line, which results in the need for an oversized neutral cable.

So a UPS with a correct and balanced absorption requires a neutral conductor with a smaller cross-section. In single-phase systems the size of the neutral cable does not represent an issue, as it must have the same cross-section of the phase conductor.

Size of the Protective Device with Circuit Breaker

Typically, UPS systems with On-Line double conversion technology (VFI) are fitted with a bypass circuit which, in the event of a UPS failure or overload, automatically connect the load directly to the mains. In this case, the size of the upstream circuit breaker must take into account the UPS’ maximum allowed current overload.

Size of the Protective Device Fitted with a Fuse

Normally all UPS systems already have an integrated input fuse protection with current values adequately set by the manufacturer. Therefore it is not necessary to fit an additional protection of this type in the system.

Protection with Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker

In cases where it is necessary to use earth leakage protections on the load is important that the UPS does not alter the output neutral/earth arrangement in relation to the arrangement at the input. The preservation of the neutral/earth arrangement is certainly guaranteed in UPS systems with a Feed-through Neutral cable, where the input neutral coincides with the output neutral.

When using earth leakage protections, one must consider that all electric devices employ internal EMC filters, which generate small leakage currents to earth.When they are summed up and added to the UPS’ leakage current, they may cause an ill-timed intervention of the differential. In this regard, to achieve a greater selectivity on the system, we recommend using 0.03A residual current devices on the UPS output to protect the loads against indirect contact and use 0.3A or more powerful residual current devices upstream of the UPS.

This way the loads are protected by the switches downstream of the UPS and the leakage currents of the loads (even if added to the leakage currents of the UPS) will never cause the protection upstream of the UPS to intervene at the wrong time.

Power Conversion Efficiency

Electronic power conversion circuits (PFC Rectifier and Inverter) certainly represent the main components of the UPS.The energy transferred to the load passes through these circuits, which are therefore particularly stressed from both an electrical and thermal point of view.The process of converting energy requires energy and the losses due to parasitic effects are added to this process. Usually, except for battery chargers, conversion circuits are the ones that use the highest amount of energy in the UPS.

To reduce and optimise this consumption, latest generation UPS systems employ high efficiency and high performance electronic components (IGBT-Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) that ensure a high quality energy conversion with very low consumption levels and compact overall dimensions.

Using IGBTs allows to employ high frequency monitoring and control technologies (PWM-Pulse Width Modulation).This means transformers are not required (Transformerless technologies) and the use of passive filters is reduced to a minimum.
The drastic reduction of these elements removes all the losses occurring in iron and copper parts and considerably reduces the overall dimensions, weight and costs of the UPS. Moreover, by reducing losses also the heat that needs to be removed is reduced.This means that also cooling and ventilation systems require less energy and are lighter and more compact.
The European Code of Conduct published in 2007 defines the minimum efficiency levels based on the size and load levels for the new UPS systems launched on the market.

Efficiency and Size

Latest-generation static UPS systems place a special focus on the energy drawn from the mains supply and the one provided to the equipment to be powered, as the main cause of wasted energy depends precisely on the overall performance of the system.
The performance is also related to the system’s usage percentage (and increases as this percentage increase). So special attention must be placed on the accurate sizing of the UPS, as an oversized system also has negative economic effects on electrical consumption, along with higher initial costs.

One must also consider that in many applications, the load may not be constant but vary throughout the day and week. In these cases it is not enough to have a high efficiency at the nominal power, because for most of its life, the UPS operates with lower loads.
In general the best solution is to choose a UPS with a high performance as constant as possible also with load percentages below 50%, as shown in the figure.This why the performance of the UPS does not depend on the actual load connected.

Batteries, too, influence the overall performance of the UPS System. Indeed, they need to be charged after being used during a power failure and kept charged when the mains voltage is on. So part of the energy absorbed by the UPS is delivered to the batteries with additional heat loss and dissipation.To reduce the consumption of energy associated with the batteries to a minimum, the battery chargers must have an efficient electronics controlled with intelligent software algorithms based on the actual conditions of the batteries.
Intelligent charging, management and monitoring algorithms allow to charge the batteries accurately and effectively, thereby reducing consumption, limiting the charging time and using the batteries in the best possible way. Using the batteries properly extends their life, with resulting savings on the number of times the batteries need to be replaced during the life of the UPS.
Another solution to consumption associated with the batteries is to determine the system’s back-up time in relation to the actual load to be powered up for the entire duration of the power failure. In addition to the resulting energy savings, a correct battery size also leads to lower installation and maintenance costs, along with a smaller overall dimensions.

Power Factor and Harmonic Distortion

An almost unity power factor at the input (PFC = 0.99 already with a load of just 20%) and a low harmonic distortion (THD ‹3%) ensure a minimal impact on the mains and a high level of energy efficiency that results in lower energy management costs.

Indeed, the more the power factor moves away from the unity value, the greater the reactive power absorbed by the mains, leading to higher operator tariffs. Plus, the reduction in resulting voltage drops substantially limits the waste of energy.

The correction of the power factor also removes the need to implement a power factor correction system and to increase the size of a potential power-supply unit upstream, which in the past had to be at least 30% of the UPS’nominal power.This allows for additional savings related to installation of the uninterruptible power supply system. A high power

factor also determines a reduction of the losses on the conductors due to a lower intensity of the circulating current.

Moreover, a careful control of the current absorbed by the mains (PFC) allows to achieve a very low harmonic distortion of the input current (THD ‹3%).The harmonic distortion caused by non-linear loads on power supply lines means that the currents in the system are higher than expected and that they contain harmonic frequency components: a phenomenon that may be seriously underestimated because these are currents that cannot be measured with standard portable instruments supplied to maintenance personnel.

Even if the current remains within the capacity of the overload protection device, the conductors operate at higher temperatures and cause a waste of energy generally equal to 2-3% of the overall load.

Local Protection

To protect an individual computer (server or work station) and its relative devices, one just needs to use a RS232 or a USB connection and install the management software on the system to be protected. If your computer is connected to an IP network you can also receive the UPS’ alarm messages on your computer via pop-up messages and e-mails and graphically view operational data through specific monitoring programs. The benefit of this type of management is that implementation costs are very low, but there is a limitation: the UPS must be installed near the system to be protected.

Extension of the Local Protection

If there is a higher number of computers to be controlled, it is possible to use the solution described above. However, a special software “agent” must be installed on the other computers.This receives and executes controls sent from the computer interfaced with the UPS.

Again in this case implementation costs are very low, but if the computer interfaced with the UPS shuts down (fault, maintenance, updates, etc.), the management system is completely prevented from operating.

As a result, one can no longer receive the alarm messages and this endangers the integrity of the remaining computers

Integration into the IP Network

This type of installation requires that the UPS is connected to a special network interface inside which the software is installed.The network interface card is in turn connected to the IP network. As the UPS is connected directly to the IP network, its management system is able to send e-mails and pop-up messages, and turn computers on and off. The protection of the various computers is ensured by installing a software agent that receives the controls from the network interface of the UPS.

This solution has a number of benefits:

Managing Several UPS Systems

To manage several UPS systems it is necessary to use a software application that can continuously monitor even a large number of UPS systems installed locally or in remotely.

All the alarms generated by the UPS through their respective management systems are intercepted through the IP network by this application.
This stores the alarms in a database and sends a series of pop-up messages and e-mails to operators who, by connecting themselves via online browsers, are able to quickly identify the UPS that generated the alarm and carry out a full and efficient diagnosis.

A typical example of how this application is used is represented by a financial institution:

The advantage of this solution lies in using a standard monitoring and alarm reception system that allows to manage any UPS without having to know its IP address.

Environmental Monitoring

There are situations where the monitoring service carried out by the UPS is not enough and it is necessary to also control the surrounding environment.

By using network interfaces it is possible to monitor – through a dedicated analogue sensor – the temperature and humidity of the room or of a specific rack cabinet and send e-mails or execute controls on remote machines if the value detected falls outside the preset limits. If there is the need to use more than one sensor it is possible to interpose a special device which allows to connect up to 8 UPS systems between

the interface and the sensor itself. Historical data on the trends of the values detected by the sensors is stored in a special log file, which can be displayed graphically or exported to be analysed and filed at a later stage.
It is also possible to monitor the status of digital inputs (for instance door opening microswitches or fault signalling contacts of the air-conditioning system) and control hardware devices such as, for example, signal lights or sirens: once again it is possible to send e-mails or run controls on remote computers.

Ideal protection for small office and home office applications

Note:

UPS online double conversion can be used in both tower and rack configurations.

Three Standard Sizes for Power up to 10kVA

The UPS and additional battery cabinets are available in sizes ranging from 2 to 4 units, depending on the required power and backup time.

Reversible Screen

With the reversible screen, the Daker DK UPS can be used in both tower and 19” rack configuration.