A life saver

We all know that mission-critical systems are often left unattended outside normal working hours, remaining either operational or in sleep mode. But watching over the UPS and mains power is still essential. After all, what happens if a weekend problem at a major bank goes unnoticed until Monday morning?

Enter Life.net, Chloride Power Protection’s advanced remote observation and diagnostics service, which provides round-the-clock performance monitoring of a UPS system and quality of the mains power supply. The basis of the system is a modem link between the UPS on customer sites and Chloride’s monitoring office.

Life.net technical support manager Tom Allen explains. “The structure we have is unique, we believe, as we have a monitoring system that is tied in very closely with our service operation. Our life administrators have direct contact with on-call engineers and can rapidly relay information to them and arrange for parts delivery and visits as required. We believe it’s a well-integrated service arrangement.”

Engineers at the Life.net service centre are on hand 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to help diagnose and resolve problems either through site visits or over the phone, depending on the issue.

The system provides early warning of any alarm condition or out-of-tolerance status, through which Chloride aims to provide a faster, more efficient level of incident response.

“Before Chloride engineered Life.net, we used to offer local monitoring on customer sites, but clients had to monitor the UPS systems themselves. UPS systems were linked to computers so customers could pick up alarms and contact us as the need arose,” says Allen.

“What the system offers above all is peace of mind. There’s no need for the customer to have any concerns, or even pay any attention to the operation of the UPS – it’s all done by us remotely.”

The system provides early warning of more than 130 separate parameters, which aids real-time diagnosis and swift identification and resolution of operating anomalies.

For those who need it, there is a 24/7 mains supply failure notification service that can be used to trigger immediate action such as load shedding or controlled shutdown.

Monthly summaries are sent to the user, along with technical advice on operation, based on the gathered data. In the event of a problem, customers can get daily and minute-by-minute accounts.

Chloride claims that in 70% of instances where critical loads experience power failures, the root cause lies not with the UPS itself but distribution system faults or operator errors. With Life.net, these can often be identified and corrected before they become a real threat to the load.

Through data collection and analysis, Life.net’s power quality management analysis provides information on power quality trends. Over extended periods, this data can be used to identify potential problems, eliminate weak links and plan for future expansion.

New to the Life.net offer is diesel generator monitoring. By delegating the monitoring and maintenance, contractors can reduce the number of site visits required by their own appointed engineers to check on the operation of generator sets and other critical power equipment.

Life.net monitors key indicators to starting availability of a diesel engine while in standby mode. These crucial parameters include cranking battery voltage, engine block temperature and fuel tank contents – all fundamental factors that must be kept under control in order to ensure correct start-up of the generator in the event of power loss.

“Any size of installation would benefit from a system like this, from a single low power unit of 10 kVA up to a multi-module parallel system,” insists Allen.

Life.net monitors a wide catalogue of organisations around the world, including Vodafone, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Intel and HSBC. Currently, the system has 6000 users.

So perhaps it’s time to put your feet up, get some kip and let Chloride manage the hard stuff for you.