Western Power splurges on UPS

Western Australian utility Western Power has signed a three-year contract with international power management company Eaton for the supply of 25 uninterruptible power systems (UPS) in remote locations across Western Australia.

Of Eaton's 9155 systems, 25 will be deployed across Western Power's remote locations, with 12 EXRT models and 9355 boxes to also be installed at a further 15 sites.

The contract is part of current upgrades within Western Power which include the installation of a VoIP network requiring new UPS infrastructure.

Eaton's UPS software will allow Western Power to remotely monitor the systems, giving it the power to automatically shut down unattended servers as well as reboot and schedule systems across multiple locations. Locally-based Eaton staff are charged with replacing batteries and maintaining the boxes.

"Locally-based staff will be able to rapidly perform hot-swap battery replacements on site rather than requesting the fly-in of technical expertise from Perth headquarters itself. This will minimise response times, reduce time to repair and substantially increase uptime," said Frank Alvaro, IT strategy and architecture manager within the IT branch of Western Power.