How do I monitor the quality of the electrical supply using an APC UPS

[Anonymous user]

am an IT Workshop supervisor in a United Nations peacekeeping mission, I support around 500 UPSes, all APC, including Smart UPS 700 and 750, Back-up UPS 800 and 900 as well as Smart-UPS 1000 and a number of rack-UPSes we use in the server room. The electricity supply in our compound is appalling, sometimes falling below 200V (in a 220-240 Volt environment). This is causing the UPSes to fail en masse and have a median life of three months. The people in charge of electricity always deny this, when called up, the start an additional generator beefing up the line and coming up with a voltmeter that shows the voltage as 220 Volts from the outlet at the time of the test. Managers mistake UPSes for step up transformers that should cope with an outlet that yields only 201 Volts for a good two hours a day while this is not possible.

My aim is to find a way of monitoring and recording the parameters of the electricity supply reaching the UPSes. I tried to use the bundled PowerChute software that is bundled with the UPSes but that is always the free version that has most features disabled. What would be the optimum way to do this? I would gladly buy a full working version of PowerChute if I know for sure it can do the job of monitoring the supplied electricity. I want to build proof that the quality of supplied power is bad and is below the specifications of any UPS. I also understand that there is a way by hiring a professional monitoring of the quality of the electrical supply but that would cost an astronomical figure. Is there a way to do this via the APC UPS and PowerChute combination? And how?

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Our battery back ups have a few options. Powerchute Personal Edition shows you the current measurements but doesn't show many details for historical purposes. Powerchute Business Edition does provide historical data, so i would recommend installing that software if possible. You can generally only use it with a 1 to 1 relationship(one server, one UPS). We do offer a software called PowerChute Network Shutdown that requires a Network Management card(ap9630,ap9631 etc) This software won't necessarily give you much more as far as historical data but will be beneficial for graceful shutdowns. Please let us know if you need more info.

back ups units - PowerChute Personal Edition
Smart ups - PowerChute Business Edition
- PowerChute Network Shutdown -