Uninterrupitble Power Supply and AKSA Generator Upgrade

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Upgrading the obsolete UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) System within the Walsall Council data centre and provisioning a new standby generator for the entire White Space has not only reinstated reliability, but dramatically improved the efficiency of the whole system.

Walsall is situated in the West Midlands. It has excellent communication links to the rest of the country, lying close to the heart of national road and rail networks. The Borough combines urban, suburban and rural communities. Walsall’s population is over 250,000 and increasing. The Council works with its partners to deliver The Walsall Health and Wellbeing Strategy as well as its own Corporate Plan.

The Council published a tender to engage with a single Contractor who could design, supply, install, test and commission a new standby generator and UPS system for the ICT equipment.

The contract was to include: 

  • Isolation and removal of their existing UPS System
  • Supply and installation of a new generator set
  • Supply and Installation of a UPS system
  • Supply and installation of new Air Conditioning change over switch to the existing generator set
  • All associated wiring and control systems
  • All Associated works

After weeks of negotiating and ensuring the correct solution was in place for the council, UPS Systems plc were able to finalise the installation locations for the suitably selected equipment. During the tender process, the AKSA generator location was a the top of a multi-story car park ramp. There were issues with the amount of space which would remain for vehicles to turn in if the proposed location was used.

This location caused safety concerns as well as complications with the sound attenuation and exhaust of the new standby generator. A new site was selected and permission was acquired from the police within the council to relocate their bicycle racks.

Once the location had been agreed, the challenge then was delivering the AKSA generator into it’s final position. The existing ramp within the car park has a 1.8m height clearance and the new generator has a full height of 1.9m.

This was overcome by temporarily removing the sound attenuating canopy and stripping the generator down to deliverable component sizes. To ensure we were able to meet the demands of the council, the sound attenuating canopy was reconstructed whilst in the final position as the car parking space had a final clearance of 2.1m.

Once the canopy was successfully reconstructed, our engineers were then able to build the exhaust system along the concrete ceiling to its final safe location for the extraction of the fumes.

To further protect the installation from vehicle damage, armoured coving was installed around the exposed side of the AKSA generator. 

To provide new essential protection to the facility, a generator was provided which is powered by a Doosan engine combined with a Mecc Alte alternator. The generator is managed by the industry leading DeepSea 7320 controller which was fitted with a remote connection facility for monitoring the generator over the GSM network. The AKSA generator was supplied with an integral 600 litre base tank which will provide 20 hours continuous running at 50% load in the event of a mains failure.

Uninterruptible Power Supply

To facilitate the change over between utility mains and standby AKSA generator, a 400A rated change over panel was installed. The change over panel is fully configurable and operates totally autonomously.

The replacement UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) was to be located in the data centre itself with the 120 new UPS batteries being installed in the roof plant space.

To provide the new critical protection to the Walsall Data Centre, a Riello UPS MST160 UPS system was selected. The Multi Sentry UPS systems from Riello UPS are industry leading from the perspective of their reliability, efficiency and footprint.

In the event of a mains failure, the new UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) and UPS Battery system will provide 30 minutes of battery back up when operating at the full load of 160kW and 74 minutes if the UPS is running at 50% load.

The UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) was installed with a new fully-rated external bypass switch for complete isolation.

The original UPS was supported by 238 batteries installed on racking with a mass of 23kg each; a total of 5,500kg! These batteries were disconnected and then removed one by one down to the ground floor. They were replaced with 3 strings of new 10 year design life batteries which were installed on the newly repurposed battery racking. The old UPS batteries were connected by +ve and -ve cables only.

The MST series of UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) uses centre tap technology which meant that an additional cable ad to be run internally through the building to provide the required neutral connection.

 

If you require a Data Centre Power Upgrade or any other information, please contact us.