How does a power cut affect you? It's not just the lights and heating! A power cut affects so much more than that. It affects your whole business and can cost you a serious amount of money. You can find our Business Power Cut Calculator here.

Power Cuts are more frequent than you realise! 

Power cuts happen often and can last an average of 50 minutes in the UK. At that length, a power cut can cause massive damage to your company and margin. It is essential to keep the power running at these times, but this can be a difficult task depending on your businesses requirements. 

Power Cut Checklist

  1. Do you have a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)?
  2. Do you have a backup diesel generator? 
  3. Is either one (or both) connected to everything that is essential to keep the business running?

    power cut Uninterrupitble power supply

How to prepare for a Power Cut

There are many things that you can go do to get your company prepared for a power cut. Here is a small list that you can follow to get you started.

  • Make a list of all of the devices that are mission-critical (i.e need to be kept running.) This needs to include the wattage and amps this can be found in the product manual or on the back of any power supplies.
  • Work out how long you need your equipment backed up for, it could be 10 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour +. (Most UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) give a backup of around 4 – 10 minutes on full load, whereas a diesel generator is a longer-term solution.)
  • Find out what budget you have for this backup power system. (Costs can rapidly grow depending on load and runtime).
  • Source a suitable backup power system or contact us left to do it for you.

Contact us now for you backup power system quote

What does a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) do?

A UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) is a short-term backup power solution designed to keep devices running long enough to complete a task and then safely shut down or keep the devices running long enough for a diesel generator to startup. It utilises UPS battery packs to achieve this and they will be recharged after every discharge. It is possible to get a longer runtime out of a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) by over-specifying the UPS, but this tends to be overly expensive, the UPS battery packs take a lot more space when compared to an equivalent solution and the time to recharge is so long that there is a risk of them not being charged for the next power cut. As such it is not recommended to use a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) this way and pair it with a diesel generator instead. UPS Systems plc offers a wide range of uninterruptible power supplies including those from Riello UPS, APC UPS and Eaton UPS as well as the UPS battery packs designed to go with them.

What does a Diesel Generator do?

 A generator produces power by using a variety of fuels and supplies, including Natural Gas, Wind and Solar power, but the most common kind is a diesel generator. Diesel generators have no runtime limit (assuming there is enough fuel) so can keep your business running even if a power cut last hours or days. Diesel generators normally take a few minutes to start up, so work well with a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) supporting the load in the meantime. The most commonly requested generators are the 60kVA generator, 80kVA generator and the 100kVA generator.  UPS Systems plc offer various diesel generators including 60kva generator, 80kva generator and 100kva generator from a wide range of manufacturers including AKSA generator and Pramac generator. We can source more environmentally friendly generators on request.

What else do I need to protect me from a Power Cut?

Either (or both) a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) or Diesel Generator gives you the basis for power cut protection. Depend on your requirement you could add a Bypass Switch (which allows for easy maintenance of either the UPS or generator), monitoring (so you know there isn't a problem with your backup power) or even extra UPS battery packs to accommodate extra equipment. 

UPS Systems plc have been supplying bespoke power protection systems for over 25 years. We work with all the major manufacturers (and some less major) to source the solution that is best for you. Please contact us if you have any questions.