Electrical Reliability for Data Centers
Gain continuous visibility into your electrical infrastructure with engineered electrical safety technologies designed for modern data centers.
Power Reliability is Non-Negotiable
Modern data centers depend on uninterrupted power to support critical digital infrastructure. Even minor electrical issues can result in service interruptions, equipment damage, lost revenue, and reputational risk. As facilities grow in complexity and density, operators require greater visibility into electrical system health while maintaining the highest standards of safety and reliability. I-Gard technologies help data center operators detect problems early, improve fault management, verify electrical safety, and support continuous operation of mission-critical systems.
Electrical Challenges in Data Centers
Constant Uptime
Electrical faults and unplanned outages can disrupt critical operations and impact service availability.
Personnel Safety
Maintenance teams require safe methods for verifying de-energized conditions while minimizing exposure to energized equipment.
Hidden Ground Faults
Undetected ground faults can compromise system reliability and increase the likelihood of equipment damage.
Power System Reliability
Operators need real-time insight into system health to identify developing issues before they become failures.
Supporting Compliance & Best Practices
Data center electrical systems are commonly designed and maintained in accordance with:
Always consult applicable standards and project requirements when designing electrical systems.
Reliability Starts with Visibility
In mission-critical environments electrical issues must be identified before they impact operations. By combining grounding technologies with advanced monitoring solutions, operators gain the information needed to make proactive decisions and can avoid reacting to failures.
Proper grounding and continuous monitoring helps operators:
Avoid Downtime with the Right Solutions
DSP-OHMNI
Continuously monitors resistance-grounded electrical systems and provides advanced ground fault detection, alarming, and fault location capabilities. When a ground fault occurs, the system identifies the affected feeder and phase while providing pulsing functionality to help maintenance personnel quickly locate the faulted circuit without disrupting operations.
Installed on high-resistance grounded distribution systems serving critical power infrastructure such as switchgear, UPS systems, power distribution equipment, and electrical rooms where rapid fault identification and continuous operation are essential.
Primary Benefit: Reduce fault investigation time and maintain operational continuity.
Neutral Grounding Resistor
Limits ground-fault current to a low, designed value by placing a resistor between the system neutral and ground, so a first phase-to-ground fault does not develop the current needed to damage equipment or sustain an arc.
Switchgear and circuits where a facility needs to reduce incident energy on top of whatever ground fault protection is already in place.
Primary Benefit: Reduces the incident energy of an arc flash that is already in progress. This is the mitigate half of the prevent-and-mitigate pair, with high-resistance grounding covering the prevent half.
Absence of Voltage Testers
A permanently installed tester that verifies an absence of voltage from outside the enclosure. A supervisory circuit confirms the device’s own function before and after every test, and results are returned in under 10 seconds.
Fitted to distribution equipment, switchgear, and electrical rooms where maintenance teams must confirm a de-energized state before work begins.
Primary Benefit: Verify a de-energized state without opening the panel.
Load Banks
Applies a controlled, measurable electrical load so standby generators and UPS systems can be commissioned and routinely proven under realistic conditions rather than assumed to be ready.
Used at commissioning and on a maintenance schedule for the backup power systems that a data center depends on during a utility event.
Primary Benefit: Prove backup power performs before you need it.
ZORC
Protects equipment from steep-fronted transient overvoltages and switching surges by damping the transient before it stresses winding insulation.
Installed at motors, transformers, and switchgear within the facility’s distribution and cooling infrastructure.
Primary Benefit: Reduce insulation stress and extend equipment life.
Impedance Monitoring
Continuously verifies the integrity of the grounding path itself, alarming if the resistor or its connection drifts outside its set value, opens, or shorts.
Applied wherever a resistance-grounded system must remain provably protected between maintenance intervals, satisfying continuous monitoring requirements.
Primary Benefit: Know the grounding path is intact, continuously.
High Resistance Grounding for Data Centers
A constant issue facing data centers is electrical reliability. Significant focus, attention and capital are applied to backup power systems, which include generators, batteries and UPS. These systems protect critical processes and power factor correction equipment but an often-overlooked issue remains electrical ground faults. It has become standard for data centers to utilize high-resistance grounding as the method of choice. Originally, high-resistance grounding as a technology was applied to process industries as diverse as food processing, mining and petrochemical. In the last 10 years it has been increasingly applied to commercial installations such as airports, data centers and hospitals to enhance the reliability and uptime of power distribution equipment.
How HRG Systems Work Today
The original HRG system developed in the 1950’s and 1960’s provided process continuity, however, they were unable to solve potential safety issues, such as a second ground fault, leaving the ground on the system too long and monitoring of the neutral path.
However, the modern relay can be programmed to prevent this and only shunt-trip the lesser priority feeder, leaving the more important feeder on-line.
Why Data Centers Choose I-Gard
For more than 40 years, I-Gard has helped organizations improve electrical safety, system reliability, and operational performance through engineering-driven solutions for critical power applications. By manufacturing both the current-limiting resistor and ground fault relay in-house, we deliver fully integrated solutions that are tested as a complete system to ensure quality, reliability, and performance.
Our engineering team works closely with consultants and end users to develop solutions tailored to specific system requirements, operating environments, and project objectives. With the industry’s broadest range of high-resistance grounding solutions, from economical designs to advanced monitoring technologies, I-Gard helps data center operators improve fault detection, enhance reliability, and support safer electrical systems.
From specification support and system design through training and commissioning, we stand behind every solution we provide, giving customers confidence in the safety and performance of their critical electrical infrastructure.
Application questions?
Build a More Reliable Electrical Infrastructure
Whether you’re designing a new facility, expanding capacity, or improving operational resilience, I-Gard can help identify the right electrical safety and reliability solutions for your application.