Eaton Electric has completed the installation of a modular power system at Africa Data Centre (ADC)’s 10MW Johannesburg Midrand facility. This is Eaton’s largest installation on the continent to date.
When leading pan-African digital infrastructure provider Liquid Intelligent Technologies Group grew its business to include data storage solutions, it required significant upgrades and improvements to expand the capacity of its legacy building in Johannesburg, South Africa. The enhanced facilities had to meet data centre site requirements with supporting power solutions – all of which had to be configured to fit into very limited space.
Despite time and space constraints, and difficult operating conditions, Eaton delivered a bespoke configurable modular power system that extended the electrical infrastructure of the facility without interfering with day-to-day operations, providing an innovative ‘plug and play’ solution that can easily be upgraded in the future.
“Eaton’s modular UPS is a self-contained system with a patented design, which allows for different types of scalability and better redundancy that may not be provided by a more conventional UPS,” says Armand van Niekerk, Data Centres Segment Lead for Africa at Eaton. “It is easy to install, upgrade and reconfigure, saving considerable time and costs for businesses.”
According to Stephane Duproz, CEO of Africa Data Centres, “Due to the nature of our business, on-site installation time had to be restricted and limited to final assembly and cable connections only.”
To address these prerequisites, Eaton built the modular units off-site at its manufacturing plant in Germiston and planned and managed the process of delivering the weighty units by road, using specialised trucks and air-suspension loading trailers, and then lifting them into place using specially hired 700 T cranes.
“Apart from physical requirements, we expected the solution to offer stability and reliability under all environmental and power supply conditions, in a robust prefabricated structure. Adequate load handling capabilities were essential, as well as ease of operation and maintenance,” Duproz adds.
Eaton’s fully integrated turnkey solution included the Power Xpert UX IEC withdrawable Medium Voltage Switchgear, the Eaton Power Xpert 9395P UPS, and Eaton’s Lithium-ion battery.
“The air-insulated Power Xpert UX IEC withdrawable Medium Voltage Switchgear is compact and a safe, reliable, and efficient choice for medium voltage switchgear. Additionally, the Eaton Power Xpert 9395P UPS offers complete isolation of output power from all input power anomalies to deliver 100% conditioned, perfect sine-wave output, even during severe power disturbances,” says van Niekerk.
He adds that the Energy Saver System built into the installation improves efficiency levels by 99% by placing power modules on standby when double conversion is not required. The system can however switch to double conversion mode in a matter of milliseconds if required.
Other benefits of the tailored modular system include that the Energy Saver System can function continuously at ambient temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius without de-rating. In addition, the UPS is easily scalable, the number of power modules can be specified, and the layout can be chosen to suit the installation. More than 90% of materials used in the manufacturing process can be recycled, significantly reducing the end-of-life impact.
“This is an easily adaptable design that can be duplicated and rolled out as a turnkey solution for other partners in the future,” concludes van Niekerk.
