Tripp Lite, a world leading manufacturer of power protection, connectivity, and infrastructure equipment, recently provided power protection and backup at Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
The installation comes at a key time, as the Kenya Airports Authority focuses on completion of a multi-year expansion project at JKIA – the busiest flight hub in East and Central Africa. Named after Kenya’s first president, JKIA coordinates over 100 domestic and international flights daily.
Constructed in 1978 to accommodate 2,5-million passengers annually, foot traffic at JKIA has nearly tripled (due in part to Kenya’s emergence as an important region of economic growth) making expansion a necessity.
Being one of the leading system integrators in Africa, Encapsulated East Africa Ltd was hired to upgrade the airport’s existing data centre. An airport’s data centre is vital in ensuring that flights take off and land on time, as well as powering new and existing digital components throughout the airport.
This meant replacing JKIA’s current uninterruptible power supply units (UPS) with new Tripp Lite models that could better suit airport needs and keep up with the multiphase expansion. Downtime could mean data loss in critical systems and business disruption, resulting in everything from rescheduled and missed flights to shutdown of check-in kiosks.
“If raw power goes to the data centre, then it will be a huge loss for KAA. Hence, it is important to connect reliable UPS Systems to protect our equipment,” says Jacinta M. Mutuku, ICT Data Centre project manager for KAA.
Encapsulated East Africa Ltd outfitted the primary data centre with four SU120KX2 SmartOnline 120kVA 3-Phase UPS Tripp Lite models, connected in a parallel configuration for redundancy operation.
The equipment supports the load of critical data centre components during power failure, while regularly filtering out line noise. As the JKIA expansion project continues, KAA will continue to back up the equipment that powers this new infrastructure.
“In an airport environment, any system downtime at all can result in a huge, logistical headache. We chose a UPS based on our current and expanding needs. Tripp Lite ended up fitting us perfectly.”