In an interaction with CIO Axis, Vikas Srivastava – Director AC Power Product Management, Vertiv, highlights the changing power requirements for different industries and discusses the company’s range of power solutions as well as sectors likely to embrace those solutions aggressively in 2020.
1. What are the major technology trends in the power industry in 2020?
The power industry is one of the critical sectors boosting India’s sustained industrial growth. Every sector today is becoming more power intensive. To meet challenges like power-density and efficiency, solution providers must focus on products with self-diagnostic features, to ensure continuous supply of power. We predict the following trends to dominate the India power solutions market –
• Double conversion efficiency is set to increase all the way up to 97.5% from 96%, resulting in a faster Return on Investment (ROI)
• Demand for lithium ion batteries will grow rapidly as usage in India will continue to expand due to longer life-span, reduction in space requirements and the load bearing capacity of the infrastructure
• Multi-level converter topology for transformerless UPS will help optimize output, and offer a huge potential for future renewable generation and smart grid applications
• Use of hot swappable/upgradable power capacity for a “pay as you grow” concept along with lesser mean time to repair (MTTR) and increased availability
The exponential growth in the power market can be attributed to factors like the rising demand for electricity amongst consumers and enterprises as well as the need for quality power.There is an increasing emphasis on the need for technological innovations to capitalize this thriving market.With an increasing dependence on data centers, we are observing an increase in demand for infrastructure components like UPS and cooling systems, critical to business resilience.
2. What according to you are the opportunities for your partners in the power market?
We believe our channel partners play an instrumental role in delivering the right power management solutions to the customers. Through collaboration, we aim to strengthen relationships with all our partners and encourage them to integrate various products from our wide portfolio of products and present them as a complete solution,based on the consumers’ specific requirements.
Our Vertiv Partner Program is designed to empower distributors and resellers to meet complex customer demands around edge computing, digitalization and other emerging trends faced by today’s data centers. We help customers overcome challenges with power, cooling and infrastructure management by deploying best-in-class solutions along with expert regional support. In addition, our Vertiv ‘Advanced Specialization Program’ provides channel partners with the training and expertise required to keep the customer’s IT infrastructure up and running without any interruption.
To help foster our partner growth, we are extending programs to our partners to develop and enhance the skills that allow them to explore opportunities based on their unique strengths. We extend our post sales service as well as our technical support to our channel partners throughout the product cycle, thereby promoting a solutions approach. So, they are able to up-sell and create value for their business.
3. Give us a brief on Vertiv’s range of power solutions.
Vertiv’s approach to power solutions is innovative in terms of energy storage, charging, and capacity extension, offering reliable and efficient products that work together to safeguard mission-critical networks.
Vertiv offers an entire range of products with highly efficient, compact, uncompromising reliability and grading availability with monolithic and modular UPS solution from 10kVA to 3.2MW single UPS.Our UPS products range from a single rack solution to systems that can power an entire building. ITA, EXS, EXM, EXL S1, APM and Trinergy Cube are some of the products we offer.
We deliver a comprehensive range of power solutions for data centers, communications networks, and commercial/industrial networks. These solutions protect critical systems and ensure continuous operations with full featured and cost-effective power solutions. Our aim is to provide safe and reliable Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPS) for mission critical, data center and edge network applications.
At Vertiv, we deliver a complete lifecycle approach – right from the launch to ongoing maintenance and performance optimization along with equipment installation.
4. Which sectors likely to embrace power solutions aggressively in 2020?
The Government of India has identified the power industry as a sector of focus,that will promote sustained industrial growth. We foresee sectors like IT/ITeS and industrial witnessing the highest adoption of power solutions in India. In addition, we also anticipate the colocation market to grow this year and embrace power solutions to a larger extent.
5. What do you believe is the India market opportunity in 2020?
The Indian power market is undergoing a significant revolution that will redefine the entire sector’s prospects going forward. Sustained economic growth and the Government’s focus on attaining ‘Power for all’ continues to propel the demand for power in the country.
According to a report by Global Market Insights, the data center UPS market is expected to exceed USD 4.5 billion by 2024, emphasising on the need for 24×7 uninterrupted power supply. To be able to meet the rising demand for power while providing cleaner, cost-effective and more consistent access, there is a need for distributed networks and intelligent automation driven by digital technology.
The government’s initiative towards sustainable energy is evident in its effort to build 175GW in renewable energy generation by 2022, and to have renewable energy account for 40% of installed capacity by 2040. We believe energy efficiency measures need to be implemented across industries to reduce the overall carbon footprint. The progressive trends are already evident in the utilisation of smarter grids, and eco-friendlier and cleaner sources of energy. These smart, more connected and decentralized power solutions will help in achieving the country’s goals of environmental sustainability.