A guide to help you choose the UPS battery backup that works best for your needs.

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) offers guaranteed power protection for connected electronics. When power is interrupted, or fluctuates outside safe levels, a UPS will instantly provide clean battery backup power and surge protection for plugged-in, sensitive equipment.
APC, our flagship brand, offers UPS options for computers, peripherals, networks, servers, as well as data centres, and facilities.

Home: The electronic devices you rely on every day for communication, security, and entertainment are at risk for damage and failure due to unexpected blackouts, voltage fluctuations or other power disruptions. A UPS provides battery backup power and protection for electronic devices, including:

• Wireless networking equipment (routers, modems)
• Computers
• Televisions
• Security systems
• Gaming consoles
• Mobile devices

Business: Downtime caused by power outages is frustrating for anyone, but can be financially crippling for a business or organisation. Every year, billions of dollars are lost due to downtime caused by power disruptions that could have been prevented by a UPS. For Fortune 1000 companies:

• Average annual cost of unplanned downtime, $1.25—$2.5 billion
• Average hourly cost of infrastructure failure: $100,000
• Average hourly cost of critical application failure: $500,000—$1 million

Small to medium-sized businesses may be at most financial risk due to a limited ability to generate revenue during downtime.

Electronics have both maximum watt ratings and maximum volt-ampere (VA) ratings. Neither rating may be exceeded by the attached equipment. Watts measure real power drawn by the equipment, while volt-amps are the product of the voltage applied to the equipment times the current drawn by the equipment.

For computers and UPS units, watt and VA ratings can differ significantly, although VA rating is always equal to are larger than watt rating. The ratio of watts to VA is called the 'power factor' and is expressed either as a number (i.e. – 0.8) or a percentage (i.e. – 80%). When sizing a UPS for your specific requirements, the power factor matters most. Generally, your UPS should have an Output Watt Capacity 20-25% higher than the total power drawn by any attached equipment.

Runtime refers to the amount of time a UPS will be able to power its attached equipment in the event of a power disruption. The more equipment you have plugged in to your UPS, the less runtime you will have, so it’s important to make sure your UPS is only providing backup power to your most critical equipment.

Many power problems originate in the commercial power grid, which, with its thousands of miles of transmission lines, is subject to damage from weather variations such as hurricanes, lightning storms, snow, ice, and flooding, as well as equipment failure and traffic accidents.

For more information on the different types of power problems, please see our white paper, The Seven Types of Power Problems