Introduction In major applications like major computer installations, process control in chem ical plants, safety monitors, IC units

of hospitals etc., even a temporary power failure may lead to large economic losses. For such critical loads, it is of pa ramount importance to use UPS systems. But all UPS equipments should be completely de-energized for preventive maintena nce at least once per year. This limits the availability of the power system. No w there are new UPS systems in the market to permit concurrent maintenance. High-Availability Power Systems The computing industry talks in terms of "Nines" of availability. This refers to the percentage of time in a year that a system is functional and available to d o productive work. A system with four "Nines" is 99.99 percent available, meanin g that downtime is less than 53 minutes in a standard 365-day year. Five "Nines" (99.999 percent available) equates to less than 5.3 minutes of downtime per yea r. Six "Nines" (99.9999 percent available) equates to just 32 seconds of downtim e per year. These same numbers apply when we speak of availability of conditione d power. The goal is to maximize the availability of conditioned power and minim ize exposure to unconditioned utility power. The concept of continuous availabil ity of conditioned power, takes this concept one step further. After all, 100 pe rcent is greater than 99.99999 percent. The Road To Continuous Availability We determine availability by studying four key elements: o Reliability The individual UPS modules, static transfer switches and other power distributio n equipment must be incredibly reliable, as measured by field-documented MTBF (M ean Time Between Failures). In addition, the system elements must be designed an d assembled in a way that minimizes the complexity and single points of failure. o Functionality The UPS must be able to protect the critical load from the full range of power d isturbances, and only a true double-conversion UPS can do this. Some vendors off er single- conversion (line-interactive) three-phase UPS products as a lower cos t alternative. However, these alternative UPS's do not protect against all distu rbances, including power system short circuits, frequency variations, harmonics and common mode noise. If your critical facility is truly critical, only a true double conversion UPS is suitable. o Maintainability The system design must permit concurrent maintenance of all power system compone nts, supporting the load with part of the UPS system while other parts are being serviced. As we shall see, single bus solutions do not completely support concu rrent maintenance. o Fault Tolerance The system must have fault resiliency to cope with a failure of any power system component without affecting the operation of the critical load equipment. Furth ermore, the power distribution system must have fault resiliency to survive the inevitable load faults and human error. The two factors of field-proven critical bus MTBF in excess of one million hours and double-conversion technology ensure reliability and functionality. With rel iability and functionality assured, let us look at how different UPS system conf igurations compare for maintainability and fault tolerance.