[Power/UPS] - If you live in SoCal, buy your UPS now...

[sfx2000]

Looks like we might see some rolling blackouts for the next few months while Southern California Gas Co. tries to sort out new reserves after the Aliso Canyon Methane leak...

From LA down to the board - Los Angeles County, Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties may be hit with up to fourteen to eighteen days of rolling blackouts due to insufficient natural gas reserves...

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-aliso-canyon-blackouts-20160405-story.html

 

[System Error Message]

A better alternative is to get a UPS (make sure it has a good PSU to provide all the watts needed) and connect the circuit from battery to your devices assuming the voltage is correct. By avoiding DC-AC-DC conversion you save lots of power. This isnt an option for desktops as the PSU provides various voltage (but you could also get the voltage converted using DC-DC converters) but many devices other than desktops have the conversion built in such as with laptops, networking hardware and so on. If the UPS has a good PSU and circuit you can add more batteries to it to add capacity. I suggest lithium ion so make sure the UPS is built for that sort of battery because of the charge/discharge profile.

A lot of networking gear and NAS has the power supply on the outside so the input is DC.

 

[KenZ71]

Most consumer UPS are designed for occasional outages. If using the ups for frequent long term outages it could damage the battery as the lead acid battery don't like deep discharges.

 

[System Error Message]

Most UPS nowadays use lithium. It has gotten to a point where lithium is cheap enough to provide more watts.

 

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Most UPS nowadays use lithium. It has gotten to a point where lithium is cheap enough to provide more watts.

Most recent one I picked up for the house had a sealed lead-acid gel cell...

 

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VLRA Gel Cells are actually ideal for UPS as they have good output characteristics, and less memory effect that Li-Ion or NiMH - the downside is that compared to Li-Ion/NiMH, they're pretty large and heavy for relative output.

 

[sfx2000]

By avoiding DC-AC-DC conversion you save lots of power. This isnt an option for desktops as the PSU provides various voltage (but you could also get the voltage converted using DC-DC converters) but many devices other than desktops have the conversion built in such as with laptops, networking hardware and so on

FWIW - 48VDC (BellCore NEBS requirement for Telco datacenters), we moved away from that back to 220VAC 60Hz 3-phase, as it was much more efficient with late 20th century equipment - since most gear runs at lower than 48VDC, one has to either buck it down, somewhat efficient, or go linear, which is horribly inefficient..

Modern switching power AC-DC power supplies are very efficient, and with a switcher, you break out the rails you need - except for perhaps those cell-phone chargers, and even there, some are much better than others...

Nicola Tesla proves this

 

[System Error Message]

both buck or linear can get above 90% efficiency if you do it right. Standard PSUs that convert AC-DC have around the same efficiency but the extra step of converting DC-AC also reduces the efficiency. Its easy to use DC with networking gear because you only need to supply one output for the device rather than a desktop PSU that has different voltages and rails.

efficiency varies based on voltage variations so how efficient really depends on the battery voltage. But you can get the battery voltage when fully charged to the upper limit of your networking gear so the discharged voltage is near the lower limit.

The other solution is to implement the battery within the equipment which is easier and cheaper with less components but you would need a way to charge it as well.

Just saying there are other ways than just UPS and you can modify a UPS to make it better like changing and adding more batteries.

 

[evh909]

you can also consider getting a portable gas/propane generator in addition to the ups if you think the outage will go for days or last for more than your ups can handle...CA seems to have stricter laws so they have to be compliant for the state, but you can find them for under $250 with a decent runtime (8-10 hours at 1/2 load).

 

[stevech]

Looks like we might see some rolling blackouts for the next few months while Southern California Gas Co. tries to sort out new reserves after the Aliso Canyon Methane leak...

Three words
Media hysteria; Blackmail


(San Diego is SDG&E, not So Ca. Gas Co. Though SDG&E may buy a lot from So. Ca. Gas. SDG&E is an acronym for "San Diego Gouge and Extortion".)

 

[sfx2000]

Three words
Media hysteria; Blackmail


(San Diego is SDG&E, not So Ca. Gas Co. Though SDG&E may buy a lot from So. Ca. Gas. SDG&E is an acronym for "San Diego Gouge and Extortion".)

Yeah, getting a bad feeling that this'll be a replay of the mess that happened some time back in 2004 just after CA de-regulated the electricity market, and then Enron and others ganged up on California and raised their rates thru the roof... and the resulting rolling blackouts, etc... and monster electricity bills..

(It was bad enough that the state reached out to Washington DC, and the DOE, which of course, being the first year of GWBush (Shrub), said they were not going to get involved (California at the time was heavy in the Gore camp - politics...))

Note - california imports a lot of power from other states, and has taken many power plants off line, including a local nuclear plant here in SoCal (San Onofre), and as part of deregulation, utilities outside of LADWP, had to sell off all their Gas/Oil/Coal/Alternatives to third parties) - it's a total mess out here..

SteveCH - go read the System Operator report - it pretty much telegraphs that it's going to be a rough summer...

SDGE is no better than PG&E, imho, they're all a bunch of crooks... look at the SDGE fines for the 2007 fires, directly passed back to ratepayers, after paying a seven digit fine to the state...