Availability, Resilience, Reliability and Redundancy

Availability - the proportion of time for which systems are available to do real work - is becoming increasingly important. It is now the case that most industrial and commercial consumers operate many loads that require higher power availability than that which can be obtained directly from the supply network. Improving the performance of the network is both difficult and expensive, so it is usually left to the consumer to take action to mitigate the effects of poor power quality and availability.

There is no single solution, but in the following Application Notes, some possible solutions are discussed along with factors that may determine the choice between them.