Manchester City Council

Service: UPS Maintenance

Background

Following a visit to the Sharp Project, YorPower established that an N+1+1 is achievable with only three of the 120kVA UPS’s. The client requested a further two units, enabling the team to provide three UPS systems covering the A supply, and three covering the B supply

Challenges

For many years both the National Grid and the government have reported concerns over the resilience of the UK’s electrical system. The risks associated with power outages can be critical for businesses, with downtime leading to lost data, missed deadlines and huge financial implications. These concerns, combined with the growing demand to store data, are leading to more companies investing in their backup systems, and looking to increase reliability and resilience. The Sharp Project, a unique office space recently acquired by Manchester City Council, previously utilised an N+1+1+1 resilience over four 120kv Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems. The council required a costeffective solution that offers N+1+1 on its A&B supplies.

Summary

The works required YorPower’s engineers to decommission and disconnect one of the council’s units and relocate it to another room in the building alongside two new 120kVA units. Each UPS system has its own string of batteries. The units were installed, and load bank tested at 100%, with each unit switched off one by one, to ensure that the N+1+1+1 configuration works as it should, before putting the client’s equipment online