Drives&Controls & BACK TO BASICS n SPONSORED BY Does data centre downtime keep you awake at night? If a data centre goes down, the consequences can be dire. Outages can cost thousands of pounds every minute, and be catastrophic for people and businesses. ABB’s Carl Turbitt explains why looking after your drives is essential for resilient data centre operations. Data centres are now widely considered to be critical infrastructure – up there with hospital operating theatres in terms of their importance to modern society. Often when I talk to data centre operators about maintenance, they discuss the uptime of their server racks and security systems. Drives rarely enter the conversation. Yet drives, when used intelligently, are a critical component in assessing and maintaining data centre resilience. In some respects, they can act essentially as a canary in the goldmine, providing early warning of minor issues before they have a chance to turn into major ones. Nipping harmonics in the bud For instance, harmonics are an increasingly widespread problem in many facilities – particularly as more non-linear loads are plugged into networks. The early symptoms of harmonics – ickering lights, nuisance trips, equipment running hot – can be easily overlooked or misdiagnosed. This could be a serious mistake, because minor issues can easily snowball into bigger problems down the line. In critical applications, no potential issue should be ignored. Nuisance trips are easy enough to deal with but if, for whatever reason, your MCB doesn’t trip, then this could cause your cables to overheat and give rise to a re. Harmonic lters or ultra-low harmonic drives require additional investment, compared to conventional drive systems with no mitigation. But in facilities that are at such a high risk of harmonic distortion, assessing and mitigating harmonics is always money well spent. Drives play a crucial role in maintaining the e ciency of the entire drivetrain. During a recent site visit, I discovered a motor operating at full capacity without any drive. The motor was intended to power a belt, which had snapped some time ago, unnoticed by anyone. Consequently, the motor had been running needlessly at full power, for an unknown time. If a drive had been installed on that motor, the resulting current drop would have alerted the building management system immediately, potentially saving signicant amounts of energy and money. Issues such as these can be uncovered quickly and easily with a free ABB Energy Assessment. To nd out more, search for “ABB Energy Assessment”. pot en ti a l o f y o Are you inve our workforce? esting in the mproves Comp Creates an Adaptable a ncreases Productivi mproves Safe W Industry recognised co I I a I any Reputation nd Flexible Workforce y and Performance orking Practices ourses from the BFPA W t a p Please call 01608 6479 00 or bfpa.co.u RITISH FLUID POW B email enquiries@bfpa.co.uk k/training WER ASSOCIATION / Direct
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