Hurricane Harvey brings home one truth: most of us have come to rely on power to the point where we don’t know what to do when it goes out. That is true in our personal lives, but it is especially true about the industry.

An Electrical power outage is more than an inconvenience. Losing power results in costly downtime, safety hazards for your employees, and in some cases, even damage to your equipment.

Power is such an important part of any industrial operation. Planning in advance is imperative to minimize any problems that occur when the power fails. If well prepared, it may be little more than a slight inconvenience until your backup system kicks in.

Keep These in Mind

Keep these things in mind to help prepare for any unexpected power outages.

The first, and most often overlooked step, is to understand your electrical system. A complete diagram of the electrical systems goes a long way in helping you to know where to start on your emergency power plan.

Along with identifying the electrical system, work to understand the critical loads at your Facility. Even though having all your systems in Perpetuum is ideal, knowing what to bypass during an outage without compromising the integrity of the entire system is key.

Set up an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to overcome problems during a short-term power outage. A UPS is not there to let your equipment run during the outage; it is only a temporary measure. A UPS runs for a short amount of time, so the shuts down in sequence to save data.

Emergency generators are also an essential part of the puzzle when the lights go out. As you’re identifying your electrical system, choose logical locations for your generators. Maintain those generators on a regular basis to ensure that they are ready at a moment’s notice.

Finally, make sure that you have a plan in place for any power outage. When you do lose power, contact the necessary people and take the important steps to keep problems to a minimum.

Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a hurricane to remind us to plan ahead.

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