Whatever may be the reason for the power failure, business activities can’t come to a halt.  They have projects to finish on time and the cost keeps increasing with every delay.  Every aspect of our day-to-day lives and business activities depends on power and without power, we may need to pay a high price for everything that is lost while the power goes off.

Can you imagine a different scenario now? There is a power failure and a UPS provides power and everything keeps running as usual without the hint of a power failure. Even though a UPS provides a short-term continuous power supply, it provides sufficient time for us to switch to an alternate power supply. Image how your business keeps functioning smoothly and how it prevents the chaos in the case of a power failure.

UPS stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply. It provides a constant supply of power without any interruption during power cuts. During normal operation, it draws current from the AC mains and during a power outage draws current from a backup source of power.

A UPS system works on the principle of utilizing stored DC power in the battery which it charges from the main power source during normal operations.  It charges the battery from the AC mains by using a Rectifier and a charge controller circuit.  During this process, it also supplies power to the output AC load.

During a power failure, the UPS converts the stored DC power into AC power using an inverter and supplies it to the AC load.

It has to be noted that there is a time delay during switching of power from mains to the battery.  This time is usually in microseconds and while it may not be a significant time delay for certain instruments like TV, fan, light or computers; it could prove fatal for certain highly-sensitive machines and life-saving medical equipment.

This is where an Online and Offline UPS come into the picture.

What is an Online UPS?

This is a type of UPS that supplies AC power to the output load through the Rectifier and Inverter Combo during normal operation and uses an inverter to supply AC power during a power failure. Here, the output power supply always stays ON and there is no need for switch over. Because of this feature, there is no switching time delay and no interruption in power supply even for a nanosecond.

What is an Offline UPS?

The offline UPS supplies the power directly to the AC load from the AC mains in normal operation.  It uses an inverter to convert the power from the DC battery and supplies it to the AC load.  In this case, there are two sources of power supply.  Hence, there is a need for switching between the two sources. The switching speed of an Offline UPS is around 5 milliseconds.