Location: Faroe Islands
Segment: Buildings
Challenge: Kringvarp Føroya is the national TV and radio station for the Faroe Islands. With an unstable main electric grid and on an island with no power connection to Europe, the station needs a robust back up power solution for its data center and to guarantee 24/7 coverage.
Solution: Two Eaton 93PM UPSs ensure flexible back up power for the station's headquarters. Each UPS can provide enough power on its own for up to four hours in case the emergency standby generator is not operational and can also work in combination. In addition, the station uses Eaton UPS systems for its outward-bound filming vehicles and the national sports stadium. Eaton also designed the new server room, aisle containment system and supplied racks, ePDUs, automatic transfer switches (ATS) and its Intelligent Power Manager software.
Eaton's solution ensures that we will continue to operate even in a worst-case power outage scenario. The scale of the whole project, to install a new server room fit for both present and future higher definition TV broadcasting and then develop a failsafe emergency power system to guarantee 24-hour coverage, was very complex and required a bespoke solution. This investment has transformed us into a station ready to deal with all the challenges of the decades to come.
Background: Kringvarp Føroya is the TV and radio public broadcaster for the Faroe Islands. As the national broadcasting station, it needs to guarantee 24/7 radio transmission in case of an emergency. The station also has its own server room for IT and storage for all of its programs and other data. With the Faroe Islands more than 1000 kilometers from Denmark and more than 400 kilometers from the coast of Northern Europe, they can only rely on their own main grid for power.
Challenge: Unfortunately, the main power grid for the Faroe Islands is unreliable with an average of 15 power outages per year. While each of these is typically between 15 minutes and an hour long, Kringvarp Føroya needs to plan for a worst-case scenario; so, they needed an UPS that could provide 4 hours of emergency power in case they were maintaining or repairing their emergency generator while there is a power outage.
In addition, the main grid produces a lot of Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) which can adversely affect sensitive equipment such as microphones and editing equipment, so any solution had to filter this noise out for certain circuits.
As part of an ongoing refurbishment, the station also decided to invest in an upgraded server room or data center to future proof its IT systems and data storage capability with its TV broadcasts moving to HD and 4K.
Its existing solution consisted of a server room, an emergency generator and a UPS.
Solution: Unfortunately, the main power grid for the Faroe Islands is unreliable with an average of 15 power outages per year. While each of these is typically between 15 minutes and an hour long, Kringvarp Føroya needs to plan for a worst-case scenario; so, they needed an UPS that could provide 4 hours of emergency power in case they were maintaining or repairing their emergency generator while there is a power outage.
In addition, the main grid produces a lot of Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) which can adversely affect sensitive equipment such as microphones and editing equipment, so any solution had to filter this noise out for certain circuits.
As part of an ongoing refurbishment, the station also decided to invest in an upgraded server room or data center to future proof its IT systems and data storage capability with its TV broadcasts moving to HD and 4K.
Its existing solution consisted of a server room, an emergency generator and a UPS.
Results: Says Eyõbjørn viõ Skipá, technician at Kringvarp Føroya: "Eaton's solution ensures that we will continue to operate even in a worst-case power outage scenario. The scale of the whole project to install a new server room fit for both present and future higher definition TV broadcasting and then develop a failsafe emergency power system to guarantee 24-hour coverage was very complex and required a bespoke solution. This investment has transformed us into a station ready to deal with all the challenges of the decades to come."
The two Eaton 93PM UPSs each has a capacity of 80 kVA, which is modular to offer a scalable solution of up to 200kVA. This offers Kringvarp Føroya further future proofing as its IT and data needs expand in the future.
The mains power feeds through the UPS to the critical loads which account for 60 percent of the circuits. Filters within the UPS also protect the sensitive equipment on these circuits from the EMI generated from the main grid.
Kringvarp Føroya staff has full visibility of the circuit status and the emergency power system at all times via the Eaton Intelligent Power Manager Software.
With the latest UPS systems installed at the station's headquarters, in their outward-bound broadcasting vehicles and in the national sports stadium, the station can continue broadcasting to the Faroe Island's population from wherever they are and guarantee availability 24/7 to meet its obligations.
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