Active Power makes case for flywheel UPS in new paper

In a new whitepaper, flywheel uninterruptible power supply (UPS) company Active Power makes the case for, you guessed it, flywheel UPS.

The paper points to two studies, one by the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory and the other by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, showing that flywheel UPS systems are more efficient than traditional battery-based UPS. The company estimates that if the entire data center industry went to flywheel UPS, they could save $180 million a year.

The major concern of users with flywheels is the ride-through time, which is about 15 seconds. With batteries, the ride-through time all depends on how long the string of batteries is. Active Power responds that good generator maintenance can ensure that 15 seconds is plenty of time for ride-through time before the generators kick in.