With the advancement of technology and automation and tremendous advancement in Information Technology in almost all the sectors of the manufacturing and process industry, there is induction of electronics and computer-based devices. All such devices and equipment need clean electric power, which has constant voltage free from sudden variations. The mains utility electric power which is available is neither constant nor stable and has several defects. It makes it most unsuitable for energizing electronics and computer-based devices and systems. Using such erratic electric power is very unsafe and damages these advanced electronics and computer-based systems.
There is a need to insert some system between the utility electricity supply, which takes power from the utility electrical supply, makes necessary corrections, and gives out a fixed stable supply to the advanced electronics/computer bases equipment. This means that we have to correct the utility electric power supply and make it suitable for the equipment and devices before supplying it to these devices, equipment, and machines. Such a system is known as a “Power Conditioning System”
Further, most of the advanced electronic/computer-based systems/machines use software and programming, and even a very short duration interruption in power supplied reset the system and the data is lost. This means that there should be absolutely no interruption and the Power Conditioning System should also provide power backup when the utility electric supply has interruptions or fails. So we need a Power Conditioning System which corrects the electric supply and also gives uninterruptable power to our systems in use. Such a system is commonly known as “Uninterruptable Power Supply” shortly known as UPS.
There is an unavoidable need to install a suitable UPS to energize our advanced costly electronics and computer-based devices, equipment, and machines. There are many types of UPS available in the market to suit our needs. We shall discuss the types of UPS available and how to choose one to suit our requirements.
By Er. Balbir Singh,
B.Tech (IIT Delhi) ME Electronics