Life support for 999 operations

Research has shown that during a normal month, in excess of 450,000 power fluctuations take place. On average, organisations experience over 200 disturbances per month – that’s seven times per day. Rob Tanzer explains to Police Professional why power protection is key to the emergency services.
Technology is now a core element of our society and many organisations in the public and private sector rely heavily on the availability of critical systems.
However, it is true to say that often when a system fails, the reasons can lie elsewhere, rather than with the reliability of the system itself. In the emergency services field, whether it is police, ambulance or fire, electrical power is used within a range of applications – from operating telecommunications systems and backing-up crucial data, through to powering security devices, such as CCTV.
With a wealth of new initiatives in the pipeline, including Call Connect for the ambulance service, the emergency services industry is under more pressure than ever to perform efficiently, especially with an increased reliance on technology.
Recent disquiet has highlighted that UK power supply reliability is a cause for concern, and puts police operations at serious risk from power failures and other irregularities, such as brownouts [a drop in voltage in an electrical power supply], sags and surges.
The existence of such disturbances in power quality will significantly damage the electrically-operated equipment used for keeping data centres operational. Power problems may have a disastrous impact on the success of emergency service provision or at the very least, can often lead to the unnecessarily early replacement of expensive equipment due to component wear.
The need for power in the emergency services sector is unpredictable. In cases of disasters, such as the London bombings, the demand for electrically-powered applications will be far greater than on a regular day. While rare, events such as these cause significant strains on equipment, such as the communications infrastructure, the data centre and emergency response centres.
Deploying an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system will support the loads that are carried within the emergency services and response sectors. Generally, many organisations associate UPS systems as the bridge between the gap of a power outage and a mains generator kicking in. This is true, but a UPS system can do so much more than just provide protection from power outages.

Protection from impurities
Recently at Chloride, we carried out an analysis of 2,300 UPS systems connected to our LIFE.net monitoring system and discovered that, during an average month, in excess of 450,000 power fluctuations take place. The analysis proved that on average, organisations experience over 200 disturbances per month, or seven times per day.
While these disturbances might not cause a power failure, they still have an effect on sensitive electrically-operated devices and can often cause equipment failures or breakdowns before the end of any product’s lifecycle. UPS systems protect the IT infrastructure from any impurities and spikes in the power supply and will successfully prolong the life of the equipment.

Finding the perpetrators
The proliferation of technology deployed across police organisations, whether it is Scotland Yard or a regional police headquarters, means that they have become increasingly reliant on the supply of electricity.
Police operations are more diverse than many other markets. The wide scope of applications dependent on electrical power goes far beyond desktop computers and data centres. For example, many overnight holding cells operate electrical locking mechanisms, which also require the back-up of a smaller UPS system.
UPS systems are invaluable when protecting equipment from power failures, providing a cushion to the voltage current and keeping many of the power impurities at an acceptable level. For police and other emergency