Packet Power Blog

What Is Power Factor and How Does It Affect Your Bill?

Power factor is the ratio of real power (kW), the power that does useful work, to apparent power (kVA), the total power your electrical system has to deliver. It runs from 0 to 1. The further it falls below 1, the more current and infrastructure... Read More

You Signed for 500 Kilowatts. How Many of Them Can You Actually Use?

For much of my career in manufacturing, I bought equipment. Machines, components, and systems that had to run continuously in environments where tolerances were tight and the cost of being wrong was real. Read More

The Watchdog 100 & Meraki MT Are Discontinued. Here's the Easiest Drop-In Replacement

WhenVertiv officially discontinued the Geist Watchdog 100, it left many facilities without a reliable, turnkey option for environmental monitoring. In May 2026, Cisco announced the same for the entireMeraki MT sensor line, with a last order date of... Read More

Smart Wireless Monitoring for ASHRAE 90.1 and IECC 2021 Compliance

Meeting Modern Energy Standards in Facilities Energy efficiency regulations are tightening across industries, and facility managers are under growing pressure to keep operations sustainable while cutting costs. Two of the most influential standards... Read More

Why Power, Environment, and Leak Monitoring Belong in One Platform

Most facilities did not set out to build a fragmented monitoring system. It happened one purchase at a time: power monitoring from one vendor, environmental sensors from another, leak detection from a third, each bought at a different moment to... Read More

Why Data Center Leak Detection Matters More Than Ever

Water and electronics have never mixed well, but for decades, data center operators could keep them comfortably apart. Cooling lived at the perimeter, water lines stayed away from the white space, and a leak was an inconvenience rather than a... Read More

The Rack Got Denser. The Monitoring Has to Catch Up.

Not long ago, a 10- or 15-kilowatt rack was considered high density in many facilities. Power distribution, cooling, and monitoring systems were designed around that operating model. Loads were lower. Changes were generally more predictable. There... Read More

5 Signs Your Facility Has an Invisible Power Problem

Most power problems do not announce themselves. They build slowly, hide inside normal-looking readings, and only become obvious when something trips, fails, or shows up on an invoice that does not match the budget. Read More

The Fastest New Megawatt Might Already Be in Your Data Center

Before you wait years for new utility power, ask a different question: Are you already using all of the power you have? Data centers are spending enormous time and capital looking for new power. But in some operating facilities, the constraint... Read More