The fragility of the UK’s ageing power generation network is widely recognised. Yet despite the very real risk of power outages, a huge proportion of the critical UK infrastructure is still 100% reliant on the mains supply – leaving businesses and consumers extremely vulnerable should major outages occur. From traffic lights to railway crossings and utilities providers, in today’s joined up and Internet enabled society, every aspect of the infrastructure is reliant upon clean, reliable power supply.

In response, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) specialist, Harland Simon, has announced the launch of Harland Protect UPS, a range of rugged power protection systems that safeguard against any mains power failure, particularly those that are subject to harsh or unmanned environments. In the event of a power cut, the system switches seamlessly to backup batteries without interrupting the power, ensuring there is no disruption to normal service. On restoration of a company’s power, the system automatically switches back to mains power and begins to re-charge the batteries.

Andy Parfitt, sales director at Harland Simon UPS commented, “The UK’s infrastructure is target driven and highly regulated and any significant failure in rail or road networks, water or power utilities will result in fines, negative publicity and a drop in shareholder value. The importance of contingency planning is therefore demonstrated on a nearly daily basis.

“Crucially it is not just about protecting against a full power outage as in reality, this is just a small percentage of the power problems that are associated with complete failure. It is likely that individual components will be damaged as a result of a power spike, surge or dip so protecting against these is critical in order to keep the infrastructure working effectively and to minimise the additional costs associated with costly repair.”

Harland ProtectUPS has been designed specifically to provide long term protection within harsh environments that are subject to extremes of temperature, vibration, water ingress, dust and dirt. The system is highly suitable for critical locations of a business that may often be unmanned, such as traffic lights and water treatment plants.

With Harland ProtectUPS, customers have the option to either select an existing model from the system’s extensive range or a bespoke system specifically designed and installed to meet a variety of specifications, for example; The Water Industry Mechanical and Electrical Specifications (WIMES) for the water industry, IACS-E10 for the marine industry and Network Rail PADS Approval.

The system incorporates special features and modifications using rugged, commercially available modules and components that are supported worldwide and designed to be fully field replaceable with readily available form-fit-function alternatives. Additional benefits include ultra longlife and easy customer maintenance.

Andy Parfitt concluded, “Our experience with many organisations in a wide range of sector indicated that there was a real need for a rugged protected UPS that is designed specifically to work reliably and for a long life within a harsh environment   one that has been engineered, modified, ruggedised and tailored to fit within specific site & application space constraints: a ‘Protected UPS’.  With Harland Protect UPS, organisations can be assured that their UPS will be the correct Form-Fit-Function to provide a long-term, reliable solution.”