There will be Power Outages – but they don’t have to impact your customers…
Winter is a time we look forward to more rugby on our screens and chilling on the couch watching Netflix. What we do not look forward to is the winter storms that can make our screens go blank at work and at home.
The risk of power outages increases in Winter.
Over 400,000 kiwis were impacted by power outages in 2018 according to Eaton’s latest ‘Black-out Tracker’ report. Many of these would have been your customers and while homeowners would have flicked on their phone torches (the new reach-for-the-candles!) Your commercial customers will have faced greater challenges and costs.
According to the new 2018 data in the Black-out Tracker, there were 83 New Zealand power outages which is down from the previous year. This sounds like good news, but the combined total duration of these outages was similar to the previous year meaning that every time the power goes out, it’s taking longer to come back on. Every additional minute without power increases cost and discomfort for your customers.
Unpredictable causes like natural disasters, falling trees and car accidents can’t be anticipated but are responsible for a significant number of NZ’s power outages. In 2018, 35% of power outages were caused by weather related activity, with June being the month with the highest number of outages. We’ve fortunately experienced fewer natural disasters though, so the amount of power outages has decreased.
New Zealand’s ageing power infrastructure continues to deteriorate contributing to and extending the impact on your customers when the power fails.
The impact of dirty power or no power at all
Your customers’ critical operations rely on clean consistent power and when lights go out, Eftpos terminals go dark, PLCs lose their programmes and IT equipment and machines stop, the risks and costs stack up rapidly.
There are obvious impacts such as the loss of productivity and materials when machines grind to a halt, however the loss of PLC programmes and the potential damage to sensitive electronic equipment introduces potentially greater and long-term consequences.
In previous years the power distribution companies have addressed these findings with a pledge to invest millions in fixing ageing infrastructure. Replacing rotting power poles, underground cable issues, switchgear and transformers in service beyond the end of their design life will take time and meanwhile your customers are turning to you for a solution – and you can deliver!
Mitigate the risk with a quality Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) solution
By providing a UPS based clean power solution you will not only provide backup power for your customers’ critical operations and processes when the mains power fails, but also protect their sensitive electronic equipment from damage caused by unclean power.
There are many factors in play when designing a clean power solution including selecting the correct UPS topology (standby, line interactive or on-line), the sizing of batteries, filtering, site reticulation and environmental considerations. Selecting the correct quality UPS solution is important particularly when protecting critical operations and expensive equipment. Like most things in our industry you do get what you pay for.
So what should you be doing?
You should be identifying expensive equipment and business operations that are critical to your customers and recommending a suitable UPS system be designed and implemented to protect equipment and operations.
For the best advice call into your local Powerbase Branch and speak to someone about the options available. Powerbase has partnerships with specialist UPS companies that have the knowledge and products to work with you on designing and implementing a complete clean and reliable power solution, tailored to your customers’ operational requirements. Better yet “PowerBase Powerpoints” are available on selected UPS solutions.
There will be outages, but you can help your customers avoid the consequences.