Importance of power generators as an industrial solution
In an emergency situation, is your commercial building or facility prepared? What would happen if a major storm hit your area with a large-scale power failure that resulted in complete loss of power? If your commercial facility is anything like many others across the nation, it is likely ill-prepared to handle a sustained power failure.
In fact, most commercial facilities do not have sufficient backup power that would be necessary to keep the facility running in the event of a total power failure. Some power outages, such as power failures from national grids, are not predictable. Even so, it should be expected that power grid failures will spontaneously and randomly occur at periodic, short intervals. While less common, complete blackouts do happen. When they do, they can last for extended periods of time and cause complete shutdowns of commercial facilities. Blackouts can essentially shut down a commercial facility’s operations for a prolonged period of time.
The mere thought of a complete power outage can be daunting for commercial facility owners or managers and can cause some to adopt an ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude. But the possibility of a total power failure - either due to a natural disaster, a man-made disaster, or a blackout - should not and cannot be ignored. The time to prepare is before an emergency - not after. Being proactive in protecting your commercial facility prior to a power outage occurring is a must.
BACKUP POWER PLAN
No matter what type of facility you are managing (manufacturing plant, data center, telecom packaging plant, agricultural operation, processing facility, commercial building, etc.) you should have a thorough plan in place to deal with power outages of all types - from short term to extended. If you have not done any planning now is the time to take a close look at your infrastructure and current environment, here’s a few key points to note:
At the most basic level you should have a backup power generator of some type (natural gas or diesel) that is large enough to power up your critical systems. A commercial electrician can help test your load for everything and also review future requirements. Depending on how your account is setup and your separate facility is reported on, you can also typically get usage data and averages from your local power company to see what type of load you have historically used.
Generator Maintenance & System Testing – many people get the basics above but forget to make sure everything stays operational and will perform when it’s needed most.
Fuel Management Planning - in the event of an outage from severe weather knowing how long your current fuel storage will allow you to run is the first step. Refueling and knowing how you are going to get fuel during an extended outage is also critical. Extended blackouts can be a major source of financial loss to both the occupants of commercial facilities as well as to the facility itself. Since power failures are often not predictable, nor are they always the result of an internal malfunction, it’s essential for commercial facility managers to prepare ahead of time for a means of providing a stable supply of electricity that will allow operations to continue in the event of a total power failure.