A steady power supply is crucial to a business’ ability to operate. Electricity is what enables them to keep the lights on and their essential equipment running throughout the day. Considering all the benefits of electricity, what would happen when there’s no power? Every second a business remains without electricity means they will incur losses in productivity and revenue. 

And a power outage doesn’t need to last for days to have a devastating impact. Even the shortest disruption to power supply can inflict a blow that may take weeks, months or even years, to recover from. Especially if the business doesn’t have a plan of action to deal with the disruption. 

Typically, any industry can be negatively affected by a power outage, however, some are more vulnerable than others due to the sheer nature of their business. The best way to understand why investing in alternative energy solutions is such a wise move is to think about the specific set of struggles each industry grapples with during a power outage. 

In this post, we highlight eight industries that benefit from a solar power system or battery backup. Let them be a sharp reminder of the need for your businesses to think seriously about energy resilience and have a robust emergency backup plan.

Manufacturing

In today’s manufacturing environment where production lines are fully automated and humans have a limited role, it stands to reason that a constant supply of electricity is absolutely crucial. Without power, these machines won’t be able to do their job, bringing everything from packing, filling, labelling, and quality control to a standstill. A power outage can even cause machinery to break down, which might extend the profit loss for days or weeks to come.

Finance

Stock markets are chaotic enough places on a normal day as huge transactions need to be made in real time to keep up with competition. But when a power outage shuts down trading it gets a whole lot worse. Stocks for billions are traded every day and so even an hour without power can mean the difference between millions of profit.

Healthcare

Hospitals and medical facilities need electricity to power the wide range of machinery and equipment that is being used in patient care. Any disruption in the normal functioning of medical equipment can directly translate into loss of many lives.

Perishable goods

Pharmaceutical industries, petrochemical industries, food processing plants, and restaurants require constant availability of power to store and preserve items with a limited shelf life. The reason sudden power outages are so detrimental to this industry is that they can damage, spoil, or contaminate perishables that require controlled temperatures and conditions . This may lead to products worth several millions of dollars going to waste.

Consulting and Information Technology (IT) Services

These companies typically rely on cloud-based networks for providing their services and products. Thus, system uptime has become a very important thing. If their systems are down, then they can’t provide services to their customers. In the worst case scenario, power outages may result in crashed computer systems, lost data and abrupt termination of communications with clients, leading to significant financial loss and recovery time.

Entertainment

Entertainment venues’ business models rely upon power availability to keep their operations running, so any downtime disrupts regular schedules or causes huge losses in revenue. For example, if there’s a blackout during movie screenings, customers will need to be refunded and cinema staff will be unable to accept bookings.

Data centres

The data centre is an integral part of many businesses, including financial services firms, insurance companies, and IT services firms. When the system goes offline during a power outage, there can be serious consequences for these businesses. Employees can’t access the tools or information they need to get their work done at best and risk losing thousands of records stored over the years at the worst.

Control centres

It is important for traffic signal operations and control centres for railways to remain up and running 24/7. When they experience downtime for any length of time due to power disruption, it can have a negative chain reaction for their business operations. This can result in transportation scheduling delays and cancellations and put the lives of passengers at risk.

Customised alternative energy solutions for business

Electricity is crucial to the day-to-day running of your business, therefore, it makes sense to invest in an alternative energy source that will step in if the mains power was to fail. This ensures that you have a plan in place to reduce the amount of downtime as much as possible. Experts agree that the best strategy is one that leverages all of the available solutions, particularly solar energy, a standby generator, inverter and battery backup, and a long-life UPS solution.

When selecting the right alternative energy solutions, you need to assess your power supply needs. Every business’ energy needs are different, and for this reason, it’s essential to calculate how much power would be required in case of an outage. The best way to do this is through an energy audit. To find out more about what this entails, read our previous post, How your business can benefit from an energy audit.

The right solution, of course, depends on the type of operation. In a hospital environment, an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) and standby generators ensure that medical equipment in ICUs, theatres, and recovery areas run without interruption. Backup generators automatically detect outages the moment they occur, but before the generators kick in, the UPS provides emergency power to medical equipment. 

In manufacturing, solar PV is an ideal solution. Production plants typically are located on large plots of land, providing plenty of space available on the roof for extensive installation of solar panels. Their peak manufacturing hours are typically during the day which offers maximum solar exposure

If a business uses less power and they only need key areas powered up, a battery-based backup solution makes sense. Often ideal for offices and commercial buildings, battery backups are usually plug and play. They run on different types of capacity depending on the business’ power requirements during a blackout.

• RELATED POST: What is a solar-ready building?

At Nashua, we’re all about taking advantage of the latest technology to protect businesses like yours from catastrophe. Our alternative energy solutions are designed to help proactively reduce downtime and avoid productivity and revenue losses.