Learn how the switchgear, transfer switches, UPS systems, busway and PDUs in a live data center are installed, operated, maintained and restored to service, without dropping the critical load.
This Data Center Power Distribution Equipment - Construction and Operation course is not a design course — for the redundancy concepts, governing codes, and reliability engineering principles behind why this equipment is configured the way it is, see our companion course, Data Center Power Systems - Design and Reliability.
This 12-hour instructor-led course teaches the people who install, operate, maintain and troubleshoot that equipment how each device is built, how it behaves in normal and abnormal operation, how to work on it safely in a multi-source facility, and how to restore service when something goes wrong.
The course follows the power path the way a technician walks it: from the medium-voltage switchgear room, through transformers, low-voltage switchgear, transfer equipment and UPS systems, down the busway to the rack. For each piece of equipment, participants learn its construction, its operating states, its interlocks and alarms, the inspections and tests that reveal problems early, and the failure modes they are most likely to see in the field.
Every data center relies on a physical chain of equipment to carry power from the utility service to the rack: medium- and low-voltage switchgear, circuit breakers, transformers, automatic and static transfer switches, UPS systems and batteries, busway, PDUs and rack PDUs.
Most of that equipment has to be inspected, tested, maintained and switched while the facility stays online. A breaker racked incorrectly, a busway joint left loose, or a UPS switched to bypass at the wrong moment can drop the critical load and cost a client millions of dollars.
Safety runs through every module. Data center equipment is fed from multiple sources, including utility, generators, UPS systems and batteries, so isolating equipment for maintenance takes more than opening one breaker. Participants learn to identify backfeed and stored-energy hazards, use remote racking and energy-reducing maintenance switching, and follow safe switching sequences that protect both the worker and the critical load.
The course also covers what contractors and commissioning technicians need before equipment ever carries load: installation practices, termination torque, busway assembly, labeling, acceptance testing to ANSI/NETA ATS, and first energization. It then moves to ongoing maintenance under the NFPA 70B (2026) Standard for Electrical Equipment Maintenance, including condition-based maintenance and the new transfer switch maintenance requirements.
The final session is devoted to troubleshooting and service restoration. Using a structured method (symptom, evidence, isolation, diagnosis, recovery), participants work through real-world events, from unexpected breaker trips and failed transfers to a UPS going to bypass, and finish with a case exercise in which they diagnose an event from alarm logs and the one-line diagram, then plan a safe restoration.
This course reviews the following current product standards, codes and maintenance standards. It does not reproduce or substitute for their full text; participants working on actual equipment should consult the current editions and the manufacturer's instructions.
|
Document |
What it covers in this course |
|
NFPA 70E |
Electrical Safety in the Workplace: safe switching, racking, energized work boundaries and PPE for all equipment in this course |
|
NFPA 70B (2026) |
Standard for Electrical Equipment Maintenance: maintenance programs, condition-based maintenance, and the new transfer switch maintenance chapter |
|
ANSI/NETA ATS |
Acceptance Testing Specifications: testing new equipment before energization |
|
ANSI/NETA MTS |
Maintenance Testing Specifications: periodic testing of equipment in service |
|
NEC (NFPA 70) |
Installation requirements, including working space, arc-flash and available fault current labeling, and Article 645 where it is used |
|
IEEE C37.20.2 |
Standard for Metal-Clad Switchgear |
|
IEEE C37.20.7 |
Guide for Testing Switchgear for Internal Arcing Faults (arc-resistant switchgear) |
|
UL 1558 |
Metal-Enclosed Low-Voltage Power Circuit Breaker Switchgear |
|
UL 891 |
Switchboards |
|
UL 489 |
Molded-Case Circuit Breakers |
|
UL 1008 / UL 1008A |
Transfer Switch Equipment, including medium-voltage transfer switches |
|
UL 1778 |
Uninterruptible Power Systems |
|
UL 857 |
Busways (North America) |
|
UL 9540A |
Test method for battery thermal runaway propagation (lithium-ion systems) |
|
IEEE 1188 |
Maintenance, testing and replacement of VRLA batteries for stationary applications |
|
IEC 61439-6 / IEC 60947-6-1 |
Busbar trunking systems and automatic transfer switching equipment (international equivalents) |
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
• Read a data center one-line diagram to identify normal and alternate sources, A/B paths, normally open devices, isolation points and bypass paths.
• Apply NFPA 70E safe-work principles to multi-source data center equipment, including backfeed, stored energy and remote operation.
• Describe the construction, operation and common failure modes of medium- and low-voltage switchgear and circuit breakers.
• Verify breaker trip settings and interlocks and explain safe racking procedures.
• Describe installation, acceptance testing and first energization of data center distribution equipment.
• Distinguish ATS and STS operation, transfer modes, alarms and maintenance requirements.
• Explain UPS operating modes and transfer a UPS to and from maintenance bypass safely.
• Inspect and maintain busway, PDUs, remote power panels, rack PDUs and battery systems.
• Apply condition-based maintenance principles consistent with NFPA 70B.
• Data center electrical maintenance technicians
• Critical facilities technicians and facility electricians
• Electrical maintenance supervisors
• Data center operations personnel and shift leads
• Field service technicians
• Commissioning technicians and testing technicians
• Electrical contractors and foremen who install and service data center equipment
• Facility engineers
• Engineers who want equipment-level operating and maintenance knowledge
• Utility-to-rack power path from the operator's point of view
• Normal, alternate and standby sources
• Critical, UPS and generator buses
• A-side and B-side distribution
• Equipment, breaker and bus identification
• Normally open and normally closed devices
• The normal system lineup
• Switching paths and isolation points
• Maintenance bypass paths
• Exercise: tracing the Site R one-line
• Establishing an electrically safe work condition
• Shock and arc-flash hazards and approach boundaries
• Arc-flash labels and PPE selection principles
• Lockout/tagout with multiple sources
• UPS, generator and battery backfeed
• Stored energy: capacitors, springs and batteries
• Control-power hazards
• Remote racking and remote operation
• Energy-reducing maintenance switching
• Human performance and switching errors
• Metal-clad, metal-enclosed and arc-resistant switchgear
• Compartments, buses and cable terminations
• CTs, VTs, protective relays and control power
• Vacuum circuit breaker construction
• Stored-energy mechanisms, trip coils and close coils
• Racking positions, shutters and interlocks
• Inspection for heat, contamination and partial discharge
• Maintenance testing overview: insulation resistance, contact resistance and timing
• Protective relay trip verification
• Failure modes: fails to close, fails to trip, nuisance trips
• Switchgear (UL 1558) versus switchboards (UL 891)
• Power, insulated-case and molded-case circuit breakers
• Draw-out construction and primary and secondary disconnects
• Main-tie-main operation and interlocks
• Electronic trip units: long-time, short-time, instantaneous and ground-fault functions
• Verifying trip settings against the coordination study
• Zone-selective interlocking and maintenance mode
• Breaker racking and interlock checks
• Ground-fault protection performance testing
• Common failures and trip investigations
• Unit substation and PDU transformers
• Dry-type and liquid-filled construction
• Taps, terminations and grounding
• Temperature monitoring and cooling fans
• Loading and temperature trends
• Infrared inspection
• Testing overview: insulation resistance, winding resistance and turns ratio
• Oil sampling and dissolved gas analysis overview
• Harmonics and neutral heating in PDU transformers
• Common transformer failure modes
• Receiving, storage and handling of equipment
• Setting, anchoring and working clearances
• Cable and bus terminations, torque and verification
• Busway installation, joints and alignment
• Grounding and bonding installation checks
• Labeling: equipment identification, arc flash and available fault current
• Acceptance testing to ANSI/NETA ATS
• Applying and verifying protective device settings
• First energization procedures
• Supporting functional and integrated systems testing
• ATS construction and controls
• Source sensing, acceptance and rejection
• Open, delayed and closed transition
• Time delays, engine-start signal and retransfer
• Bypass-isolation ATS operation
• Paralleling switchgear: what the operator sees and does
• Generator testing under load and load-bank connections
• Manual transfer and manual paralleling
• Transfer switch maintenance under NFPA 70B (2026)
• Failure modes: fails to transfer, fails to retransfer
• STS purpose and where it is used
• SCR switching and millisecond transfer
• Preferred and alternate sources
• Source synchronization and transfer windows
• Out-of-phase transfer restrictions
• Overload and downstream fault response
• STS bypass and maintenance isolation
• Alarms and event logs
• Troubleshooting unexpected transfers
• Inspection and maintenance
• Rectifier, DC bus, inverter and static bypass
• Input, output, bypass and maintenance bypass breakers
• Normal, battery, static bypass and maintenance bypass modes
• ECO modes and what they change
• Synchronization and bypass availability
• Transferring to and from maintenance bypass safely
• Alarm hierarchy and event logs
• Power modules, fans and capacitors
• Preventive maintenance and load testing
• UPS fault response and recovery
• VRLA and lithium-ion battery systems
• Strings, cells, modules and cabinets
• Battery disconnects and safe isolation
• Battery management systems
• Float voltage, state of charge and state of health
• Internal resistance and conductance trending
• Temperature effects and thermal runaway
• Inspection, terminals and torque
• Capacity testing principles
• End-of-life indicators and replacement planning
• Busway construction, joints and tap-off units
• Hot joints, torque checks and infrared inspection
• Busway loading and continuous temperature monitoring
• Floor PDUs: transformer-based and transformerless
• Remote power panels and branch-circuit monitoring
• Phase balancing and neutral loading
• Rack PDU types: basic, metered, monitored and switched
• A/B rack feeds and redundant loading limits
• Overload prevention and capacity alarms
• Adding and moving loads without dropping racks
• NFPA 70B electrical maintenance programs and condition-based maintenance
• Maintenance intervals, records and trending
• Troubleshooting method: symptom, evidence, isolation, diagnosis, recovery
• Unexpected breaker trips and failed transfers
• UPS transfer to bypass and loss of one rack feed
• Communications failure versus power failure
• Planned maintenance switching and returning equipment to service
• Emergency response and avoiding cascading failures
• Post-event inspection and root-cause analysis
• Final case exercise, course review and open Q&A
Start: 10 a.m. Eastern Time
Finish: 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time
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