Why or When should I replace my UPS system?

05 Feb Why or When should I replace my UPS system?

Jantech Services regularly has customers asking for a price on replacement UPS systems. When we ask them why, in most cases they respond with “It’s very old”. But is this reasoning valid justification to replace your equipment?

With over 40 years in the UPS and Battery service industry, we would say not necessarily. In our opinion, there are 4 basic reasons which would justify the need to replace a UPS system or any other critical protection equipment:

1- Your system has become unreliable. These failures could be due to the age of the equipment or it is not being serviced properly by your current service provider.

2- The cost to operate and maintain the system has become unaffordable. If the maintenance costs have become highly escalated (i.e., overpriced maintenance agreements, escalated parts pricing due to availability, excessive hourly repair costs), then replacement can certainly be justified. New UPS systems do offer high efficiency ratings compared to legacy models. Unless you are powering at least 50KVA or higher in critical load, calculated cost differential in energy will determine if the “marketed” Return on Investment are in fact true.

3- Parts availability. Every manufacturer, at some point in time, (generally 7 years after the last date of model manufacture) will no longer support the equipment and/or guarantee expedited parts availability. It is important to know the “end of life – end of support” dates for your particular piece of equipment years beforehand. If you wait too long, you may have a failure and not be able to obtain replacement parts needed for the repair.

4- Equipment Oversizing. When your UPS was installed 10 – 20 years ago, most Data Facilities were running full Data Center Operations internally and the UPS system was reasonably loaded. The trend over the last few years have seen many companies outsourcing these operations to the cloud, and now the UPS is supporting only 5 – 10% of its’ capacity. In many instances, these companies are paying higher energy bills due to the inefficiency of the UPS at reduced loads. This increased cost may justify replacement with a lower power capacity UPS.

In conclusion, if your system is reliable, costs to operate and maintain are reasonable and parts are readily available, get your monies worth and stay with your current system.

Team Jantech