Eaton's big plans for green power

Evershree Mathadeen, Sales Manager at Eaton Power Quality, says there is a growing commitment to green technology and sustainability in the global uninterruptible power supply (UPS) market.

“Sustainability is meeting the current needs of our society in ways that enable future generations to meet their own needs,” says Mathadeen. “For us at Eaton, this includes developing customer solutions that drive sustainable growth around the globe, including efficiently using and conserving global resources, developing energy-efficient products, reducing emissions and protecting the environment.”

Mathadeen says as environmental considerations form an integral part of daily business, Eaton is focused on minimising the environmental impacts of its products.

Worldwide, the company is promoting its Green Leaf label, which is used to identify an Eaton product, solution or service that offers proven exceptional environmental benefits.

“Although all of Eaton's products and solutions are designed to meet or exceed government standards for protecting the environment, products and solutions with the Green Leaf designation go well beyond these standards to provide exceptional environmental benefit,” explains Mathadeen.

She adds that, without environmental awareness, companies risk losing out on international trade, they face prosecution or clean-up costs and they could find themselves having to fork out a great deal of money on damage control to redeem themselves in the eyes of an increasingly vigilant public. Understanding this, as well as the difficulties many companies face in dealing with their e-waste, Eaton has developed a recovery service for UPSes at the end of life to provide its clients with a disposal solution that fully respects the law and the environment.

“The aim of this UPS recuperation service is to industrialise the recycling of equipment at the end of life to meet expectations of clients while also respecting the legislation in force,” Mathadeen says. “We strive to create products that are safe in their intended use, conserve energy and materials and prevent pollution throughout the product life cycle, including design, manufacture, use and end-of-life management.” Eaton has an ISO 14001 certification and adheres to the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances directive.

Eaton practises what it preaches. One example of a recent environmental achievement is the UPS plant in Finland, which has reduced its energy consumption by 50% and reduced both water and mixed waste by 80% within the past five years. The company has taken its own advice to heart and is aiming to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 18% by 2012.

Two Green Label products that Eaton is particularly proud of are its 9395 UPS system, which reduces electricity consumption in large data centres, and the BladeUPS, which reduces electricity consumption for blade servers, data centres, networking applications, storage devices and critical IT equipment.

The Eaton 9395 UPS dramatically improves energy efficiency and sustainability, while offering a much smaller footprint than legacy systems. Operating at greater than 94% efficiency, the 9395 requires less power, which in turn creates cooler operating conditions. This translates to reduced facility air conditioning requirements, while extending the life of UPS components and batteries. What is more, the 9395's Energy Saver Mode enables the UPS to maintain excellent input THD without the use of input filters, enabling 99% energy efficiency.

Conversely, most competitive products must rely on input filters, which lower their efficiency rating. The use of sustainable materials and highly efficient manufacturing technology in the in the design of the 9395 has resulted in the lowest UPS lifestyle carbon footprint on the market, with 80% less energy required for production and testing. The 9395 also offers the smallest footprint in its class - 50% to 60% less than competitive units.

The Eaton BladeUPS, designed for data centres, offers IT managers industry leading 97% energy efficiency levels, even at low load levels, dissipating on average 65% less heat and providing a 70% reduction in footprint. A single module of BladeUPS provides 12kW of power in only 6U of standard rack space, including batteries, and in a variety of configurations.

Patented Powerware Hot Sync technology makes it possible to parallel up to five UPS modules for extra capacity, plus one extra UPS for redundancy, thereby expanding power protection from 12kW to 60kW N+1 in a single 19-inch rack while reducing energy and cooling costs with its energy-efficient design. ABM technology charges batteries only when necessary, preventing battery corrosion and prolonging battery service life by up to 50%. And, replacing hot-swappable batteries and electronic modules can be done without interrupting the power, which dramatically improves the availability of the protected IT equipment.