September 16, 2011

KnowUPS - Eco Mode

Today everything needs to be "Green."  And suppliers, vendors (we are GreenlightUPS after all), manufacturers, and customers all want to be part of it.  
The problem is that not all Green things are great.  (Pond scum in my pool for one)

One potentially bad Green thing on UPSes is the optional "Eco Mode" found on many new units.  Eco Mode is a sexy marketing term to essentially mean Line Interactive operation.  Since UPSes that operate as Line Interactive only switch over to battery during an outage (allbeit after 0.005 seconds) the UPS does not use up energy when there are no problems.   Online UPS are always online... always using energy.

The rub is that Eco Mode is found on those expensive Online UPS units.   So you pay double the price for a UPS for it to be online and then you downgrade it (um.. upgrade it)  to operate it in Eco Mode.

Kinda stupid.... especially when Eco Mode saves 3.3% or 10$ a year per 1000watts.  Learn more from APC's greenpaper