What is EPMS?
An Electrical Power Monitoring System (EPMS) is a software platform that continuously monitors, analyzes and visualizes the electrical infrastructure of a facility in real time.
In modern data centers, where uninterrupted power is the foundation of business continuity, an EPMS provides operators and facility managers with complete visibility into the health, performance and availability of the entire electrical distribution network.
Rather than simply displaying electrical measurements, a modern EPMS transforms raw operational data into actionable insights, helping organizations improve reliability, reduce risk and optimize energy usage.
What Does an EPMS Monitor?
An EPMS typically integrates with all critical electrical assets across the facility, including:
Medium Voltage (MV) Switchgear
Low Voltage (LV) Distribution
Transformers
Main Distribution Boards (MDB)
Power Distribution Units (PDU)
Remote Power Panels (RPP)
Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS)
Backup Generators
Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS)
Static Transfer Switches (STS)
Circuit Breakers
Energy Meters
Power Quality Meters
Battery Monitoring Systems
By collecting data from every level of the electrical network, the EPMS provides a complete picture of the facility’s power infrastructure.
Key Functions of an EPMS
A modern Electrical Power Monitoring System provides much more than real time monitoring.
Typical capabilities include:
Real Time Electrical Monitoring
Power Flow Visualization
Energy Consumption Monitoring
Power Quality Analysis
Voltage and Current Monitoring
Harmonic Analysis
Load Balancing
Breaker Status Monitoring
Electrical Alarm Management
Historical Trending
Energy Reporting
Event Logging
Sequence of Events (SOE)
Predictive Maintenance
Capacity Monitoring
Executive Dashboards
Operational KPIs
These capabilities help operators detect abnormalities before they impact critical operations.
Why Is EPMS Critical for Data Centers?
Power failures remain one of the biggest risks to data center availability.
Even a brief interruption can affect business continuity, critical applications and customer services.
An EPMS enables operators to detect overload conditions, identify abnormal electrical behavior, monitor redundant power paths and quickly investigate electrical events.
Instead of reacting to failures, operators can proactively manage the electrical infrastructure.
For mission critical facilities, an EPMS is no longer a luxury. It is a fundamental component of a reliable and resilient electrical infrastructure.
EPMS vs Traditional Power Monitoring
Traditional electrical monitoring systems often provide isolated measurements from individual devices.
A modern EPMS combines information from every electrical asset into one unified operational platform.
Instead of viewing individual meters, operators gain a complete understanding of how the entire electrical network performs.
The platform correlates alarms, analyzes historical trends and presents meaningful operational KPIs that support faster and better decision making.
EPMS Built on Ignition
At Contel, our EPMS solutions are built on the Ignition platform by Inductive Automation.
Ignition provides an open, scalable and vendor independent architecture capable of integrating virtually any electrical device using standard industrial communication protocols such as Modbus, OPC UA, IEC 61850, BACnet and MQTT.
Because Ignition is not limited to electrical monitoring, the EPMS can easily become part of a unified Data Center Management Platform that also integrates SCADA, BMS, DCIM, cooling systems, environmental monitoring and operational analytics.
This architecture gives operators a single platform for monitoring, visualization, reporting, alarming, analytics and executive dashboards across the entire facility.
Benefits of an EPMS
A modern EPMS delivers significant operational and business value.
Improves electrical system reliability
Reduces the risk of unexpected power failures
Provides real time visibility across the electrical infrastructure
Supports preventive and predictive maintenance
Optimizes energy consumption
Improves Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)
Simplifies troubleshooting and root cause analysis
Supports capacity planning and future expansion
Provides historical reporting and operational analytics
Integrates seamlessly with DCIM, BMS and SCADA platforms
More Than Monitoring
The real value of an EPMS is not the electrical measurements themselves.
Its value lies in helping organizations make better operational decisions.
By transforming electrical data into dashboards, KPIs, trends and actionable insights, an EPMS improves system reliability, supports preventive maintenance, optimizes energy consumption and strengthens the resilience of mission critical facilities.
At Contel, we believe that an EPMS should not operate as a standalone system.
It should be an integral part of a unified operational platform that connects electrical infrastructure, cooling systems, building management, operational analytics and executive dashboards into a single source of truth for the entire data center.
With Ignition as its foundation, an EPMS becomes much more than a monitoring system.
It becomes the intelligent electrical backbone of the modern data center.
