Retrofitting with a Mitsubishi Electric 9900B UPS
When Dave's customer needed to retrofit a competitor UPS that was aging out, a Mitsubishi Electric 9900B UPS was the product of choice.
Retrofitting with a Mitsubishi Electric 9900B UPS
When Dave's customer needed to retrofit a competitor UPS that was aging out, a Mitsubishi Electric 9900B UPS was the product of choice.
It’s no secret that the prices of electricity charged by California utilities are some of the highest in the country.
An overall higher cost of living compounded with the well-documented cost of wildfire mitigation contribute to this situation. Added factors include the administration and operation of the CARE (California Alternate Rates for Energy) and FERA (Family Electric Rate Assistance Program) that offer discounted electricity rates to qualifying lower income households.
This elevated cost of the kilowatt-hour makes building a data center in southern California less attractive than other areas, such as Seattle or Texas, where energy costs are more palatable. Understandably, the notable absence of data centers forces mission critical businesses to resolve the issue of providing backup power to keep their operations running at the enterprise level.
An industrial enterprise company that is a customer of CPT - A Service Branch of Mitsubishi Electric located in southern California utilizes their mission critical equipment to back up a variety of businesses that they run that includes online transactions, insurance, and also a call center.
I recently spoke with Dave Jones of CPT in Whittier, CA about this particular customer of CPT’s. A separate facilities group manages the company’s LA office and has hired CPT to perform service on their mission critical equipment that has been housed in the LA facility for the past 9 years.
In the fall of 2020, Dave was alerted by the Facilities Manager that a 400 kVA uninterruptible power supply was on the verge of aging out and needed to be replaced promptly. When asked for a recommendation, Dave responded with Mitsubishi Electric’s 9900B without hesitation.
The Facilities Manager agreed, saying he had conferred with other people on his staff and commented, “Agree. Mitsubishi’s the way to go.”
Dave mentioned that the number one criteria for selecting Mitsubishi Electric was reliability, adding that the customer had been very displeased with the performance of competitive units that they had formerly been using.
One significant challenge to the installation of the 9900B was that CPT was only given a window of 12 hours to make the switch on a raised floor. The footprint of the 9900B was substantially smaller than that of the unit being replaced, which although meant more labor for the installation team, it afforded more open space for the customer.
An additional complication was that the UPS was in the basement of an older building with relatively low ceilings.
“ It wasn’t a problem at all. Your units are bullet proof. ”
Dave sees plenty of opportunity in the near future with retrofits in other locations coming due. He plans to recommend the Mitsubishi Electric brand for those replacements as well.