Preparing for a Power Outage

Power outages can sink your bottom line. They can slow production, damage inventory, and cause havoc with critical systems. Your customers and employees depend on your ability to keep the lights on when the power grid goes down, especially in an emergency situation. Preparing for the possibility of an outage is an investment of time and resources that will put a solid foundation under the future of your business.

Preparing for Power Outages

You should develop a power loss plan that covers both blackouts and brownouts as soon as possible. Your power outage emergency response plan should address how physical operations, communications, and other aspects of your business will function in an outage. It should also cover system shut down and continuity plans. Finally, you will want to determine how and when you will bring each system and machine back online once the power is restored.

Train Your Employees

Outages don’t happen on a set schedule. It is imperative that your employees receive thorough training in your power outage response plan so that they can take prompt action. Prompt action is essential for keeping personnel and customers safe from injury. It also critical for protecting sensitive electronics, compressors, computers, and other appliances that can suffer permanent damage from a power spike.

Regularly Test Your Emergency Generator & Emergency Systems

It is imperative to regularly test your emergency generator. You should adhere to all manufacturer guidelines and requirements. This will give you the most reliable results. Further, you will want to test all of your backup and safety systems. This includes your smoke alarms, sprinkler systems, security cameras, emergency lighting, etc. As with fire alarms and workplace lockdown drills, conducting power outage drills should be something you do on a routine basis.

Purchase Surge Protectors

Surge protectors are a small investment that can protect expensive equipment. Surge protectors can protect servers, computers, cash registers, and other critical components so that power outages and surges don’t damage the sensitive electronics and critical data they contain.

Cross Train Your Employees

You should never depend on one employee to implement your power outage emergency plan. It is vital to ensure that at least one trained individual will be at your business if the power goes out. Managers, foremen, and team leaders are ideal for this purpose. Further, it is important for these individuals to ensure the people they are responsible for are aware of the steps that need to happen in the moments and minutes following a power outage.

We encourage you to contact Gen-Tech at (800) 625-8324 for more information about our emergency power generators. It’s our pleasure to tell you more about the systems we offer and the services our technicians can provide for your operations.

Posted Under: Power outage