Parallel UPS configurations

Print page

Overview:
Increasingly, organizations are finding that the risk of running off straight utility power — even briefly — is too great to ignore. So they deploy multiple UPS modules to ensure conditioned power even if one UPS fails.

In paralleling, two or more UPSs are electrically and mechanically connected to form a unified system with one output — either for extra capacity or redundancy. In an N+1 redundant configuration, there is at least one more UPS module than needed to support the load. As a conjoined system, each UPS stands ready to take over the load from another UPS whenever necessary, without disrupting protected loads.

Today's firmware-based paralleling offers particular advantages, compared to traditional paralleling approaches. For one, there is no system-level single point-of-failure. With a peer-topeer control strategy, each UPS module operates independently and is not reliant on an external master controller or a complex web of inter-module control wiring