Business depends on the everyday ability to carry out its operations. But when the electricity goes out, unplanned downtime can occur – and that can cost your business hundreds, thousands or even millions of pounds. An outage you weren’t expecting can lead to situations that might be difficult to restore. Ensuring your business has a plan to eliminate downtime in the event of a power outage will help your business reduce the potential losses that can occur due to blackouts.
What is a power outage?
Power outages can include short-term or long-term electrical power losses for certain areas. Blackouts can affect homes, businesses, or entire cities. There are several types of power outages that your business might experience:
1. Brownout: The voltage drops and causes the lights to dim. Brownout can cause damage to electrical equipment.
2. Blackout: Total power loss in an area for several minutes or in an unlimited amount of time.
3. Permanent error: Large power loss due to interference with the power line.
Whatever type of power outage your business might experience, you must be prepared for anything. With increased electricity outages, they are an important concern for businesses. Sensible solutions include having a back-up generator. For Generator Rental, visit Newburn Power Rental
What causes a power outage?
Some power outages are planned, such as when maintenance and upgrading needs to occur. However, at other times, your business may experience unplanned outages. All of the following factors can cause a power outage:
Weather: Weather is one of the most common reasons for power outages. Weather that caused power outages could include storms, cold weather, floods, tornadoes, and forest fires. Natural disasters are a particular source of concern – they can come suddenly and cause power outages for a long time.
Animals: Animals can come into contact with fuses and transformers and cause them to stop working. Squirrels are famous for climbing electrical equipment and causing blackouts.
Vehicles: Vehicle accidents can damage the poles and power lines, causing a power outage.
Equipment failure: Sometimes electrical equipment can malfunction due to age or various other factors. Over time, salty and moist air or dust can affect engine performance. Weather and natural disasters can increase the risk of equipment failure.
Spikes: Increased power supply voltage can cause a power outage. Spikes are often the result of a lightning or short circuit.
Monetary loss as a result of power outages:
Downtime as a result of a power outage can burden your business and cause it to lose out on a large amount of money. Power outages can affect your profits and impact everyday operations. Financial losses from downtime can differ based on industry, duration of outages, time and the amount of people.
To calculate the cost of downtime per hour, add hourly labour costs to income lost every hour. Your hourly labour costs will take into account factors such as income, number of employees, number of hours worked per week, average annual employee benefits, and the percentage of labour affected by blackouts. Lost income per stop hour will be a factor in your daily income and the percentage of your income that is affected by the outage.