AusLee,
I guess you aren't a fan of rotary UPS systems. Personally, I think both have a place, the decision being the usual tradeoff of space, maintenance costs, capital cost, ultimate reliability, etc. In response to your questions, the following comments relate to the systems employing a diesel engine close-coupled to an electrical machine ona common bedplate. I don't have much experience of the Caterpillar type using a rotating enregy store and I won't comment further on them.
At least one of the manufacturers I listed tries an electric start of the engine. If that doesn't work, it dumps the clutch and starts the engine using the rotating mass of the electrical machine. Brutal but very effective.
Second fallback is install multiple units. You are having a very bad day if they all refuse to start.
You totally overlook the fact that static UPS units have lousy fault-clearing ability when the utility or backup generator is not available. Rotaries are excellent at clearing faults. How would you explain to your customer that you dropped their data centre or trading floor because a breaker or fuse didn't clear? I have been bitten by the breaker-clearing problem before, although thankfully it wasn't my UPS - we were brought in as independent consultants to establish what happened! Personally I would prefer a multiple-redundant rotary over any static system I've yet seen if ultimate reliability was the design intent.
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If we learn from our mistakes,
I'm getting a great education!