9 power supply issues solved by using a UPS 

By on

Installation of a UPS can help in reducing problems due to issues with the power supply.  Often this is related to nine key issues:

  1. Power failure - complete loss of supply (standard application for a UPS)
  2. Power sag - short term voltage dip in supply beyond normal operating parameter
  3. Power surge - short term voltage increase in supply beyond normal operating parameters
  4. Under voltage - longer term voltage dip lasting minutes to days
  5. Over voltage - longer term voltage increase lasting minutes to days
  6. Electrical line noise - electromagnetic and other high frequency interference
  7. Frequency variation - variations in frequency from normal operating parameters
  8. Switching transient -  spike and large over voltages caused by switching operations
  9. Harmonic distortion -  current and voltage distortion due to non-linear loads

Depending on the type of UPS installed it is possible to resolve some or all of the above issues.  The simplest installation of an off-line UPS will resolve issues (1) to (3), while the installation of a full double conversion unit could potentially resolve all issues. 



Steven McFadyen's avatar Steven McFadyen

Steven has over twenty five years experience working on some of the largest construction projects. He has a deep technical understanding of electrical engineering and is keen to share this knowledge. About the author

myElectrical Engineering

comments powered by Disqus

  1. Notes's avatar Notes says:
    8/21/2013 3:21 PM

    Trackback from Notes

    A UPS is an uninterruptible power supply.  It is a device which maintains a continuous supply of electrical power, even in the event of failure of the mains (utility) supply.  A UPS is installed between the mains supply and the equipment to be protected... ...


Comments are closed for this post:
  • have a question or need help, please use our Questions Section
  • spotted an error or have additional info that you think should be in this post, feel free to Contact Us



Motor Efficiency Classification

Electric motors are one of the most widely used items of electrical equipment. Improving motor efficiency benefits include, reduced power demand, lower...

HTML Symbol Entities

HTML supports a variety of entity symbols which can be entered using either numbers or an entity name.  The number or name is preceded by the ‘&’ sign...

Motor Starting - Introduction

Motor starting and its associated problems are well-known to many people who have worked on large industrial processes. However, these things are, of course...

Post Authorship

In 2011, with the introduction of it’s Panda search ranking algorithms, Google introduced tools for determining the original author of posts.  The intention...

Periodic Electrical Installation Inspection – How Often?

How often installations are inspected is up to the owner of the installation, provided such durations do not exceed any regulatory maximums in force. ...

How to Check a Circuit is Dead

If you want to check a circuit is dead (not live), you should always use the three point method. First check a known live circuit, then check the dead...

What does N+1 mean?

The term 'N+1' relates to redundancy and simply means that if you required 'N' items of equipment for something to work, you would have one additional...

Capacitor Theory

Capacitors are widely used in electrical engineering for functions such as energy storage, power factor correction, voltage compensation and many others...

Motor Insulation

Insulation on a motor prevents interconnection of windings and the winding to earth.  When looking at motors, it is important to understand how the insulation...

New Mail Chimp

We've been sending out Newsletters on a regular basis for a few weeks now. To do this we have been using Google's Feedburner service. While Feedburner...

Have some knowledge to share

If you have some expert knowledge or experience, why not consider sharing this with our community.  

By writing an electrical note, you will be educating our users and at the same time promoting your expertise within the engineering community.

To get started and understand our policy, you can read our How to Write an Electrical Note