News coverage: EETimes US

At dusk on November 9th 1965, all of New York state, parts of seven adjoining states, and the Canadian province of Ontario were plunged into darkness. The blackout was one of the biggest power failures in history; happening at the height of rush hour, it trapped 800,000 people in New York’s subway system, delayed millions of commuters and left thousands more stranded in office buildings, elevators, and trains.

Power demand had been near peak and power lines were heavily loaded. A small power fluctuation from the Robert Moses plant in Lewiston, New York caused a misconfigured protection relay to trip out the main 230 kV power lines feeding southern Ontario from the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Station near Niagara Falls. This load was transferred to other lines which also tripped out, isolating the power station. With a major station down, the instantaneous load transfer was too great. One station after another became overloaded and tripped out in a cascade. Within five minutes the grid was down. Anyone with parents or grandparents living in the north eastern United States at that time has no doubt been regaled by many tales of comradery from that fateful night.

Fortunately, blackouts of this magnitude are pretty rare but smaller blackouts can still hit almost any grid; such as the August 9th 2019 blackout where more than 1 million people across the UK were cut off at the start of the evening rush-hour after lightning strikes took two power stations offline.

It is also an uncomfortable truth that many power markets worldwide are showing signs of strain. The overcapacity buffer needed to ensure security of supply (and keep the lights on) is simply too small, leaving potential blackouts or brownouts on the horizon.

These are nightmare scenarios for anyone tasked with keeping critical systems running. Regardless of whether a system relying on continuous power is medical equipment, industrial automation systems, security monitoring systems, transportation or any other relevant field, infrastructure managers know that a quality UPS buys them something priceless: time. Time to spool up backup generators or time to gracefully power-down the system and avoid equipment damage.

Asian Power Devices (APD) have a long and enviable record at the forefront of professional lithium ion UPS design, powered by a dedication to R&D that sees more than 10% of the company’s turnover funnelled to R&D every year:

“The professional teams of APD’s Uninterruptible Power System Business department have over 20 years of R&D strength, becoming long-term strategic partners with many world-renowned European, American and Japanese companies. We use our strengths in innovative R&D technology to provide customized UPS designs and manufacturing services for our customers.” – Peter Hu, General Manager of APD’s Uninterruptible Power System Business department.

The latest generation of APD lithium-ion UPS boasts a 10-year usage life – over twice that of traditional lead-acid UPS products – and a reduction in size by 53% when compared to similar products in the industry, making it simple to get reliable protection where it’s needed.

All APD’s lithium-ion UPS product series have UL 1973 and IEC 62133 safety certifications and excellent thermal characteristics, guaranteeing safe operation wherever they are used. This is backed up by a smart battery management system (BMS), with sophisticated dual protection functions and accurate State of Health (SOH) and State of Charge (SOC) estimation algorithms that monitor the operating status of the battery in real-time, improving both system reliability and performance whilst extending the battery life.

Even in the hospital environment, where the uninterrupted operation of medical equipment is critical, infrastructure managers can rest easier knowing that APD’s small and light UL 60601-1 certified lithium-ion UPSs are proven to effectively reduce leakage current and electromagnetic interference. This ensures effective protection for their medical equipment wherever it is, including medical diagnosis and treatment trolleys, hospital incubators, or in isolation wards and case rooms.

Over the years, APD’s rich experience has led it to become a long-term partner of many first-tier global industrial control and medical equipment companies throughout Europe, the United States and Japan, using its outstanding customized R&D capabilities. APD has the industry’s highest-level safety laboratory where the scope of testing includes helping customers get the swiftest product certifications in the industry, significantly reducing their time to market and winning them ‘best quality support’ awards and quality excellence awards for many years running.

APD’s Lithium battery UPS bring customers a fresh experience of small size, long product life and safety. Find yours at https://www.apd.com.tw/en/our-products/apd-lithium-ion-ups/