Today most businesses are acknowledging the need to respond to the environmental and commercial uncertainty brought about by climate change and a changing global landscape. Driven by the mandate to manage skyrocketing costs, and reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint, industrial houses are increasingly looking at power management solutions as an essential part of their ensemble. This has made Indian business and industrial houses go for eco-friendly desktop computers (consumes 60 watts), eco-friendly laptops (consume 15 watts), eco-friendly printers and various other eco-friendly electronic devices. After taking these baby steps towards eco-friendly business, it is time for the Indian industry to take the giant leap by considering eco-sustainable UPS systems (consumes power in megawatts).

UPS systems are becoming an integral part of almost every industry be it IT&ITES, manufacturing, healthcare, telecommunication, aviation, banking, research centres, laboratories and many more. Not only big but even small and medium enterprises are taking the role of UPS systems in their organizations seriously.

Grid power quality in India is not up to the standard. A power cut can mean hours of downtime, productivity losses and critical data loss from servers and desktops, if there is no appropriate backup system. Heavy machineries in factories and critical equipments in offices, which need to be in continuous operation and demand high level of data integrity and availability, require uninterruptible power supply. Since utility power is not dependable, UPS is the only solution.

Despite, Indian UPS market being highly unorganized, it is growing at a rate of 15-20 per cent annually, and is also very competitive with a large number of domestic and international brand in the fray. In fact, this competition has given the UPS buyers a number of manufacturers to choose from. Unfortunately, the selection is so large that the buyers often get confused and mislead into buying a UPS based on brand hoax and sometimes based on price. Just because of perceived reliability of brand names many buyers overlook the technical aspects of the UPS systems and settle for well-known brands. However a buyer should always consider technological features of the UPS system, energy consumption by the UPS, energy savings, output power quality, and reliability of the UPS and past performance of the UPS system. Buyers should fully understand what their requirements are, how can they minimize their power spending and reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while ensuring continuity of power.

Considering the present environmental conditions, one must go for an ecosustainable UPS. UPS systems with input IGBT rectifiers and having an input factor of 0.99 makes a UPS system function at top efficiency with a substantial reduction in energy consumption.

Anticipating the need for Green UPS systems to minimize power spending, Riello PCI India is equipped with UPS systems that exceed the specifications of the European Code of conduct (on energy efficiency and Quality of Uninterruptible Power Supplies). UPS systems by Riello PCI allow our customers to control energy consumption, reduce operating costs, and ensure availability of critical IT environments and continuity of manufacturing units. Riello PCI has a countrywide initiative to become the most environmentally friendly power protection company and for this Riello/Aros UPS systems have obtained ISO 14001:2004 certifications which activate all the procedures to reduce pollution and control the resources.

In today's business environment energy logic quantifies savings and provides an estimated time to return on investment of each recommended action.

Though slowly but the buzz around energy efficiency is picking up in India. Most of the organizations have become very conscious about deploying more energy efficient solutions and to get quick ROI. Riello PCI India has been researching into energy efficient solutions that can help the organizations save energy and bring down the total cost of ownership.

After accepting the concept of green offices by implementing eco-friendly IT appliances, which consume few watts of electricity, it is time for the Indian industry to seriously consider highly efficient UPS systems. It is in our own interest that we manage power diligently and optimize the usage of power for increased profitability. The business and industrial sectors must contribute towards the larger social cause, and take steps to reduce carbon footprint and make our planet a Green Planet, with Green UPS systems.

(About the author: Anil Munjal is Director & CEO, Riello PCI India Pvt Ltd)