As electricity back systems go the UPS or Uninterruptable Power Supply and Inverters do the same thing, enable current supply during power cuts. Most Indians get completely confused between the two and easily interchange the terms. However, there are solid differences and knowing them will help you choose an Inverter or an UPS for your home or office power needs.
The basic difference the two:
UPS is a back up to a particular system or systems. Here in India, it’s mainly computers. The UPS instantly provides power to them during electricity failures so that valuable working data is not lost. Inverters are on the other hand, general power back up to an area (home or office). During power failures the inverter takes up the power load of the home/office and supplies power to it. This power will vary according to the size and type of inverter and its battery.
How does an inverter work? Inverters generate power through three components: The inverter battery which creates the DC current, the circuit which converts the DC battery to electricity and the ‘charges ‘which provide the electricity for your home/office.
More differences:
So while the UPS is for a single system, the inverter can provide electricity to TV, fans, lights and simple household appliances (ACs may require bigger systems or generators).
Naturally, the UPS can provide power back only for a few minutes (just enough to save your files and log out) while an inverter can keep going for hours.
The UPS comes on in an instant while inverters may take a few seconds to generate power.
The price too is different with UPS costing just a few thousands rupees against inverters which may cost anything from 10,000 on-wards.
How do you choose? Simple now isn’t it? If you need power back up to your system alone then just attach an UPS and forget about it. But India is a country of power outages, failures and shutdowns, sometimes for hours together. In case you need basic electrical equipment running, then choose well and get an inverter and give it a powerful, easy to maintain inverter batteries and say goodbye to power failure tortures.