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Emerson Network Power partner, NPS, helps Bank of Cook Islands address critical infrastructure needs

Bank required redundancy and high availability for uninterruptible power supply solution

An Emerson Network Power partner, Natural Power Solutions (NPS), a power quality and lightning protection company, worked with the Bank of Cook Islands (BCI) to address its critical infrastructure requirements.

As a Pacific Island country, Cook Islands is prone to natural disasters like cyclones that affect the island’s critical infrastructure. As a result, BCI requires redundancy within its banking facility.

The bank said it was looking for cost-effective service options as minimal access to factory-trained service technicians meant expensive maintenance schedules.

Additionally, BCI said it wanted to focus on growth and build its design scope with expansion in mind.

NPS business development manager in New Zealand, Cliff Chapman, worked with BCI to explore a variety of options to address the infrastructure requirements.

“Cook Islands’ remote location and limited access to service technicians means we had to think more resourcefully around the solution,” he said.

In learning that the project was part of a greenfield project as the bank was starting a new call centre and relocating to a new floor within the existing premises, NPS proposed to deploy the the Liebert APS, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) scalable solution by Emerson Network Power.

“The APS’ swappable modules mean the bank staff on the ground can troubleshoot in a similar way they would troubleshoot their printer or copier,” Chapman said.

NPS said due to the modularity of the system, it is designed to slot new power modules in easily, meaning bank staff can slot a replacement unit in without prior advanced electrical knowledge.

NPS also supplied an electrical switchboard, designed to suit the single-phase and three-phase output circuits.

“Emerson Network Power and NPS have given us a cost-effective, secure and robust power solution that can provision new services rapidly,” BCI transformation program director, Geoff Ryan, said.

“That means my team doesn’t need to worry about the hardware and can focus on our customers. Working with Ralema Geno, our infrastructure manager and datacentre designer, we can see that partnering with Emerson Network Power and NPS give us scalable support for internal and external clients,” he added.