1) The Megapod UPS system from Mitsubishi integrates UPS modules, batteries, and other components into a compact layout that saves significant floor space in data centers compared to traditional UPS systems. 2) A data center designer, Howard Chez, began using the Mitsubishi Megapod system for projects after seeing its space and installation time savings firsthand. Megapod systems can be installed in around two weeks compared to six weeks for traditional systems. 3) In addition to space savings, the Megapod provides higher efficiency than other UPS systems, lowering total cooling and power costs over the life of the data center.

2. FEATURE • Mitsubishi
Designer’s Choice:
A Data Center Power Expert Explains Why He Adopted
the Mitsubishi Megapod® as His UPS Standard
W
ith mature technologies, you
don’t often hear about history
being made. But ask Howard
Chez, and he’ll tell you about
the time he watched uninterruptible power
supplies for data centers step into a whole
new era.
A consulting engineer specializing in
electrical design, he was planning a data
center in a Chicago high-rise before the
Megapod® UPS configuration was even a
glimmer in Mitsubishi’s eye. But, before
long, Megapod became his default UPS
recommendation.
“Data center projects unfold in their own
good time,” Chez says. “Sometimes they
start small, but then you keep on adding
pieces. The Chicago project is a good example. We began designing a three-or-fourthousand-square-foot facility in a
downtown building in 2006, and today it
covers seven floors. We’re still working on
it, floor by floor, as space that our client
would like to have becomes available for
remodeling and updating.”
The client, CoreSite Realty Corp., operates 14 data center campuses across North
America.
“Each phase of these long-term projects
teaches you something new,” says Mr.
Chez, whose practice is based in Skokie,
Ill. “No matter how long you’ve been doing
this, there’s always another insight waiting
for you — either about the customer, the
site, or the technology.” On the technology
side, he says, he watched a dramatic innovation come into focus between 2006 and
2011.
“Often, my clients make key equipment
decisions before I come aboard. CoreSite
has a lot of experience and technical sophistication, so their choices give me a solid
foundation for facility design. And at the
start of the Chicago project, their standard
was a conventional UPS from another manufacturer, a pretty good product for that
time.
“As we expanded into additional spaces
6
in the building, CoreSite started to specify a
more efficient UPS, the Mitsubishi 9900 series. They’d done their homework, so I had
no difficulty integrating it with the overall
design. Of course, the restricted floor plate
Electrical Products & Solutions • October 2013
in an existing high rise always presents
some challenges, but fitting a bulky UPS
into a tight spot was all in a day’s work.
“Like any facility designer, I took it as a
given that the switchgear, Continued on page 8

3. FEATURE • Mitsubishi
Continued from page 6
AN INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL
EVALUATES PERFORMANCE AND TCO
Data center designer Howard Chez points
to a 2012 competitive analysis comparing
Mitsubishi’s Megapod® system, which
features 9900B UPS modules, to a leading
competitor’s solution. “If you look at total cost
of ownership and efficiency, Mitsubishi is the
logical choice, hands-down,” he says.
the batteries, and the actual UPS modules
would occupy a certain footprint, and require certain clearances. You have to be
creative, just as you do with the air handling, the mechanicals, the lighting, and the
servers.
Mastering Space and Time
“Then, in 2008, something changed.
Working with CoreSite, Mitsubishi developed a 9900-Series UPS layout that questioned some necessary evils: Did a UPS
really have to take up so much valuable
floor space? Did installing it have to be so
labor-intensive?”
What Mitsubishi introduced, Mr. Chez
says, was “a highly integrated product in
which everything fits together in a nice, neat
8
row. Switchgear on one side, UPS modules
backed up against it and batteries at the end.
From CoreSite’s standpoint, space is
money, and here we had a lot less wasted
space.”
In addition to real-estate concerns, the
new approach was partly driven by CoreSite’s desire to streamline communications
— and the division of labor — among itself, the onsite contractor and Mitsubishi.
“CoreSite and Mitsubishi arrived at a onestop-shop concept that would minimize installation issues.”
“It would all would fit together by design, so we’d be able to pack a lot more
UPS density into a given space. The product would be unusually compact, with just a
single connection point going in.”
Electrical Products & Solutions • October 2013
Luke Jolitz, the CoreSite facilities manager, describes the space-saving tactic as
“folding the traditional layout in half. Like a
lot of brilliant ideas,” he notes, “once you
see it, you say, ‘Why didn’t we think of this
before?’ ”
“The next installation was the fastest I’d
ever seen,” says Mr. Chez. “The units arrived at the site already assembled and
tested. Everything pre-cut, everything terminated. The contractor and rigging company put the different modules and pieces in
place, and then Mitsubishi came in — one,
two, three — to do all the connections, the
final testing, and the startup.
“Less quantifiable, but critical, was the
way the new approach took away the burContinued on page 12
den of possible

4. FEATURE • Mitsubishi
Continued from page 8
miscommunication between the client, the
contractor and the manufacturer. No more
finger-pointing, and no more problems with
start-up, because Mitsubishi handled it all.
Since then, we’ve done a series of installations, filling three more floors of the building, using those Mitsubishi systems.”
Later phases of the Chicago project have
called for higher UPS capacities. “The original systems we installed had up to four
225-kVA modules, whereas the newest systems call for three modules of 500 kVA
each. Usually, now, we’re installing an N+1
system, where you have two modules being used for load and the third to pick up
the load if one of the primary modules goes
down.”
Introducing Megapod
The most recent phases of the Chicago
installation feature the fully developed
version of the compact approach, which
Mitsubishi now calls Megapod. Megapod
integrates the efficient Mitsubishi 9900B
UPS with batteries, bypasses and critical
load cabinets in one economical layout.
The system eliminates many conventional
conduits and cable runs, with a “bus
backplane” that reduces connections by
80 percent. Mitsubishi asserts that Megapod can shorten installation and commissioning time from six weeks to two
weeks, and trim total cost of ownership
by as much as $273,000 per system in the
first five years.
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Other than footprint and installation advantages, designer Chez says, “There are
technical reasons why I like Mitsubishi
equipment. For instance, I always have to
cool the room to provide an environment
where the UPS and the batteries will give
you the best life. The 9900B has one of the
highest — if not THE highest — efficiency
levels in the industry. And that translates
into a total system that needs less cooling
than competing UPS setups. Beyond that,
your cooling installation costs are lower,
and you don’t have the same cooling-related power drain that a less efficient UPS
would give you.
“In terms of facility design, Megapod
makes sense in so many ways. The backto-back layout minimizes the UPS footprint.
All of the cables come cut to length and
lugged, to shorten the installation time. The
batteries have front-mounted terminals, so
the cabinets can be smaller — again, trimming the footprint. The modular layout
means shorter lead time and easier scalability. And the 9900B’s efficiency gives you
lower total cost of ownership across the
board.
“The vendor has evolved, too,” says Mr.
Chez. “During the infancy of the Megapod
concept, we were all learning together. But
now the Mitsubishi UPS Division has matured into an outstandingly adaptive and
helpful company. It’s really been a joy to
work with them, to get the information we
need when we need it, and — if there’s an
Electrical Products & Solutions • October 2013
issue — to resolve it without any hassle.
It’s been much easier to work with Mitsubishi than with a lot of other vendors.”
Keeping the Faith
While Mr. Chez bases his CoreSite facility designs on equipment that this client
specifies, he’s eager to recommend Megapod as a solution for other projects as well.
Take the ColoHub data center in Bettendorf, Iowa. The client, Geneseo Communications, Inc., is headquartered near
Bettendorf, and this year opened a 32,000square-foot data center in a converted supermarket there. “I was instrumental in
getting Megapod specified for this project,”
Mr. Chez says.
“Advanced technology like Megapod is
just another reason why high-tech companies select Iowa as an attractive choice in
data center locations,” says ColoHub president and CEO Scott Rubins.
And Robert Heiderscheidt, president and
CEO of MDI Access, the design-builder of
the ColoHub facility, agrees. “Although
floor-space issues were less critical for the
Bettendorf project than they would have
been in a high-rise situation, MDI has total
confidence in the Megapod’s layout advantages. The high efficiency, the small footprint, the short lead time and the fact that
Mitsubishi takes ownership of the connections and the testing onsite … it adds up to
the cleanest, most effective system we’ve
ever been involved with.” J