Sustainable by design: Eaton's BladeUPS

With the latest round of electricity price hikes approved by Nersa, South Africa is fast joining the ranks of those countries where the cost of electricity is outpacing the cost of hardware, and electricity costs account for up to a third of data centre operating costs.

That is why, when selecting new data centre hardware, including uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes), buyers are no longer considering only initial purchase prices - they are also looking closely at the long-term operating costs and environmental impact.

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.

The Eaton BladeUPS is ideal for blade servers, data centres, networking applications, storage devices and critical IT equipment.

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.

Further green features of the UPS, beyond these technologies, are that paint is not used in the manufacturing process of the Eaton BladeUPS. By not using paint, there is less of an ecological impact, less manufacturing time is required, and fewer toxic materials are used. Additionally, all packaging and shipping materials are made of recycled carton and paper.

As a result, the UPS is recognised as an Eaton Green Solution, a brand used to identify a product, service or solution that offers proven exceptional environmental benefits.