Are UPS used for external events??
- Thread starterIngram
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bishopthomas
Well-Known Member
Morte615
Active Member
If you are looking for a full show backup then the way Pie4Weebl suggested is best. Use small UPS's to backup things like the boards and any comms you have. Then if power drops out the generator kicks in, you may see a flash of darkness as the switch over happens but as long as your boards don't go down it should continue just fine.
porkchop
Well-Known Member
Well that is unless you're using any kind of fixture that has an arc lamp (most newer moving lights and projectors). That being said "smart" generator backups are a pretty expensive setup and require renting and running more generators than are needed (depending on the system you might just keep 1 backup generator in idle and assume that if you have more than one primary gen die that you have bigger problems than interrupting the show). In 4 years of international touring and a whole bunch of different generator setups I've only used a smart system once. It was nice to know that when the generator tech was a 2 hour drive away that we could keep running if we had an issue, but the system was so complicated that even as experienced electricians it would have been way over our head to try and do any emergency fixes should there have been a major issue.
So to answer the OPs question. Events that have the budget and see it as important do have a backup power system to keep all the gear online in the event of a generator failure. I would guess that the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, Cirque du Soleil's touring shows, and the Superbowl halftime show had redundant generators and a smart system to keep power uninterrupted, but the systems are expensive and complicated to setup reliably so not many events use them. If you have a backup at all, the most common practice I've seen is to have a second generator sitting there that is off and the few minutes it takes to tie into it and fire it up are considered an acceptable interruption in the case of generator failure.
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A UPS big enough to handle lighting loads would be huge. My experience with large UPSes is that they wouldn't take to portable use very well and would be more of a problem than a solution. I would think that when redundancy is required from generators, they would run two, three, or more synchronized in parallel. A transfer switch is not used in that situation. The generators are sized such that at least one can go off-line and the remaining can still handle the load without interruption. The generators have to be properly equipped to run in parallel, and you need a trained operator, but it is done all the time. Basically, the big generator dealers can provide any amount of power at any level of redundancy you want. All it takes is $$$.
In Seattle, a building housing KOMO TV, several radio stations, and a server co-location facility, for companies like Amazon, had an electrical room fire a few years back. They rented several megaWatts worth of generators to power their facility 24/7 for several months. Parallel operation allowed for routine engine maintenance and redundancy. The whole operation took up a good portion of a city block, including a fuel tanker.
In Seattle, a building housing KOMO TV, several radio stations, and a server co-location facility, for companies like Amazon, had an electrical room fire a few years back. They rented several megaWatts worth of generators to power their facility 24/7 for several months. Parallel operation allowed for routine engine maintenance and redundancy. The whole operation took up a good portion of a city block, including a fuel tanker.
As has been said, high amperage UPSs are impractical. In my experience, nationally televised award shows, PPV events, and the like will use generator power as MAIN and house/local POCO utility as BACK-UP, with switchovers/transfer switches that are more likely to be manual rather than automatic.
Some companies that specialize in such systems specifically for the entertainment industry:
Saunders Electric - Hollywood Entertainment Power: Generators, Transformers, and Green Energy
Temporary Power Solutions | CAT Entertainment Services
Legacy Power Services
Some companies that specialize in such systems specifically for the entertainment industry:
Saunders Electric - Hollywood Entertainment Power: Generators, Transformers, and Green Energy
Temporary Power Solutions | CAT Entertainment Services
Legacy Power Services
iLightTheStage
Active Member
Actually, Saunders can tie-in directly WITH company power in parallel, as I have seen done when working with them for the American Country Music Awards. As they explained to me, it isn't a transfer-switch type situation, but is specially wired in such that both the company power, and the generators, are powering the mains at the same time. Therefore, if Company power drops out, there is NO lag time with the generators. Although, their generators are the size of 53' trailers, and are specially wired for this. According to them, they are one of the few companies who are legally allowed and certified to tie-in in this way. Link.
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At an old job I had an opportunity to work on noise and vibration control for numerous backup power systems from single smaller gen sets to facilities that looked like someone pulled several locomotives in and took the bodies off. During that period I saw UPS systems for data centers that did just what you describe, if incoming power service went outside certain parameters the system automatically kicked onto the batteries, a big room full of racks of batteries, and if the incoming service was not restored within a certain time then the generator fired up and once that was up and running the power transferred over to the gen set(s). However, such critical applications are the only facilities I've seen incorporate that intermediate step.
My radio studios are built that way. 40 kVA UPS fed via transfer switch and 100 kVA generator. The UPS is a flywheel system instead of batteries. The flywheel stores enough energy to hold the load for about 50 seconds, which is plenty of time to switch to generator. However, the load requirements of the studios are quite a bit smaller than a stage full of lights.
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