Best practice for UPS 

9 questions to ask your UPS suppliers

Serious about sustainability?

Ensure that you purchase UPS systems from suppliers with high sustainability standards.

Schneider Electric has won prizes for their sustainability work and have EPSs showing the environmental performance of many of their products (I have followed them with envy for years, working for their competitors).

ABB is another player known for their high efficiency (and yes, I am slightly biased having worked there).

You can’t find the perfect supplier, but you can make sure you select a serious provider of UPS. And you can push your suppliers to improve.

Where are the product and its components produced?

Depending on where the products were manufactured or assembled, the risks will differ. Supply chains are complex. Many suppliers still don't know where the parts of the equipment they sell comes from.

1. Ask them this:  Where is the UPS you want to buy manufactured and assembled?
2. Ask them this: Where do the main materials and components in the UPS come from?

Do your suppliers know the environmental performance of the UPS?

Environmental product declarations, or EPDs are standardized life cycle assessments (LCAs) which tell you the environmental impact of products.

3. Ask them this: What is the embedded carbon for the product? Can they provide an EPD or an LCA to prove that? 

Depending on where the products and their materials are produced, the environmental impact will be different.

Can the UPS handle the heat?

Can the UPS handle higher temperatures? If yes, you may need less cooling in the data center—which saves energy.

4. Ask them this: What is the optimal operating temperature range for the UPS, and how does temperature affect its efficiency and lifespan?

Look for low losses!

UPS systems run 24/7. They lose energy all the time.

Make sure your UPS has the lowest energy losses.

Lower losses = less CO2 emissions.

5. Ask them this: What is the energy efficiency at different load levels? How are they working to reduce the losses?

Closed loop chemical use?

Power electronics which are in UPS rely on silicon and a lot of chemicals. Even if your supplier is not producing the power electronics, they should know what is going on upstream.

6. Ask them this: Do their suppliers of power electronics use chemicals in closed loop systems over and over again in the factory?

Better batteries.

Even if you buy lithium-ion batteries, they will need to be replaced. Imagine all the batteries from all the data centers in 10-15 years from now if they can't be recycled to a large degree.

7. Ask them this: Can the batteries be recycled?
8. Ask them this: How much of the battery is actually recovered? Is this proven or just claimed?
9. Ask them this: Can the origin of the materials be traced?

Ask for batteries complying with the EU Batteries Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, even if you are outside of the EU.

Check collaboration. 

How are your suppliers working with others? Even if your tier one supplier does not produce the batteries, they are dependent on them. Are your suppliers for example part of the Global Battery Alliance to drive things forward?

Good suppliers usually:

  • Follow industry principles

  • Collaborate across the value chain

  • Push their own suppliers

Awkward questions? Good.

Do the meetings with your suppliers feel awkward? Is it hard to even get hold of your data center equipment? Keep asking.

Your suppliers may not know the answers to all of this. The supply chains for electronics are complex. But just asking the questions matters. It creates a ripple effect in the company.

Trust me, I have been there hearing the clients’ whispers from sales to Sustainability to R&D to the factories and back again.

You don't need perfect answers, you need the right questions. And the more of us who ask them, the faster the industry moves.

Do you have a different opinion? Do you have the most sustainable UPS on the market? Get in touch!