Eaton focusing on digital solutions for DCs, industries, utilities, and buildings: Debasish Banerji

Eaton is an intelligent power management company dedicated to improving the quality of life and protecting the environment for people everywhere. Eaton’s power quality portfolio encompasses a comprehensive suite of power management solutions, including uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), surge protective devices, power distribution units (PDUs), remote monitoring, software, power factor correction, airflow management, rack enclosures and services.

Debasish Banerji, Director, Sales & Service Power Quality Business, Eaton Power Quality Pvt Ltd, spoke with Dataquest on the sidelines of the Elecrama 2023 trade show in Greater Noida, India.

Banerji said: "We are a 110-year old MNC. Our last year revenue was $20.8 billion. We have seven manufacturing plants in India, and over 5,800 people in India. In Elecrama, we are showcasing end-to end solutions. We have solutions focused on homes, SMEs, and ranges from 600VA to 1.2MW."

At Elecrama 2023, Eaton has displayed the entire product range. For DCs, it makes UPS products. It also focuses on digital solutions for DCs, utilities, industries, and buildings, that are under Brightlayer brand. He said: "It is the platform, where we get insights. We churn data and get operational insights, and deliver outcomes for customers. We have the Brightlayer suite for DCs. We have data center infrastructure management (DCIM) and enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions. We are generally monitoring all of the devices, and monitor their performance. We also have digital solutions that cater to electrical power management, and devices."

Save on carbon emission

Eaton has also come out with microgrid solutions. There are different sources of power where you can draw i.e., utility, DG, solar or renewable, and battery sources. This unique solution helps optimize power that you are drawing from the grid. Customers can optimize power consumption during the day.

Banerji noted: "We are trying to enhance how you can minimize the DG power, and save on carbon emission. You can also save on carbon emission by 30% and reduce costs by 15-20% at an optimized level. You can get carbon credit through the solution. Our solution is well aligned with the carbon neutral goals of the country."

In cyber security, Eaton has one of the best solutions. Today, the solutions are targeted at the IP or component level. Eaton also offers firewalls for the OT side of cyber security. In manufacturing setups, it complies to IEC 62443 that aims to secure industrial automation and control systems. Eaton is further providing consulting services, also does lifecycle management. Eaton is covering the entire spectrum of solutions.

Banerji said: "We are very well aligned with the Make in India program. Most of the manufacturing is done in India. We have two vehicle group plants in Ahmednagar, and one plant in Ranjangaon, Maharastra. In electrical, we have a plant each in Pondicherry, and Chennai. In aerospace, we have plants in Bangalore and Coimbatore. In filtration, we have a plant in Pune.

"In edge computing, we offer devices for 5G expansion. Edge computing is a major focus for all the lines. We have smart enclosures, racks, PDUs, etc., along with micro data centers. We are now focused on deploying edge computing solutions for DCs."

Banerji added that Eaton has a new channel partner program -- PAPP -- Power Advantage Partner Program, for single-phase UPS partners and 3-phase UPS partners. It has a large partner ecosystem. Eaton is also training and upskilling the partners. It is also offering solutions through the partners. That has delivered results very significantly.

Eaton India offers products such as edge computing -- SmartEdge Enclosure, in-house a.k.a, captive data centers power back-up and monitoring -- 93PR modular UPS range and Brightlayer for data centers suite. In| cyber security, it offers cyber security services. For renewable energy in data centers, it offers battery energy storage solutions – BESS.

Technologies like EnergyAware UPS allows users of UPS to recover money from power suppliers by transferring back excess power stored UPS batteries. Over the years, Eaton has made various technology innovations in the UPS systems.

Brightlayer and digital future

Brightlayer is bringing the digital future into focus. Brightlayer gives the tools to use that data to solve your power management challenges. Brightlayer software suites are organized to address specific needs of the markets Eaton serve. It's the "depth of field" that's the key to help address the critical power management needs.

A part of Eaton’s Brightlayer data centers suite, Intelligent Power Manager (IPM) software for disaster avoidance application provides the tools needed to monitor and manage power equipment in physical or virtual environments to keep IT devices running during a power or environmental event. This innovative HTML5-based solution ensures system uptime and data integrity by allowing you to remotely monitor, manage and control devices on your network. IPM provides a solution that is easy to use, maintains business continuity and allows you to do more with less.

Eaton is also dedicated to providing comprehensive cyber security services for operational technology (OT) to help keep operations and personnel safe. Eaton also provides reliable power distribution equipment, DC network power systems, and UPSs to ensure a steady flow of high-quality power — as an outage of just a few milli-seconds can mean catastrophe in a data center.

Eaton further provides flexibility in data center design, leverages emerging technologies to trigger building a supporting infrastructure that could outlive the IT equipment and management software itself. This helps to build a scalable model, which evolves with the change in the technology.