It’s all over the news. Worldwide we have seen many news stories about extreme events: historic fires in California, 127℉ recorded in Death Valley, record heat and fires in Scandanavia, record heat and draughts from Japan to Europe. This impacts our lives. See the terrifying natural conditions in Africa where many farmers can no longer subsist, resulting in the worldwide immigration crisis we see. So these have great impacts on our lives and economics. And we’re not done yet. It’s only summertime and hurricane season is starting – the prime time when the risk of grid-disrupting events where you live and work is greatest. Why this is happening (climate change?) is not important. You are concerned with keeping your facilities operating and being energy resilient.

First, think about how important energy resiliency is for you. What if a major storm were to come through your city and damage the grid so that electricity is no longer delivered? What are the potential practical and financial impacts to your company?

• You cannot make or deliver product. You cannot do what you do (and charge for it). Yet you still pay staff. Speaking of which: the very safety of your staff!
• Uncertainty. You don’t know if your power will come back to resume normal services in one hour, a day, a week, or much, much longer (like in Puerto Rico).
• Lost data. Your business is your data, and losing it because of a power loss can be existential. A number of firms went “under” directly due to Hurricane Sandy.
• Efforts to get back in operation. Once a system is down – even if only for a few minutes – it may take a long time to get it operating normally again. And the cost. One study estimated that companies generally spend 20-30% of annual revenue to recover from even a brief power loss, in some cases requiring new equipment.

And a storm is not needed to knock out power. Many parts of the country are growing in population and electric demand, and utilities cannot keep up with the additional needed infrastructure to meet this growing demand. Several utilities have openly admitted they may be unable to reliably deliver electricity to people and businesses during peak need.

Energy resiliency means being less or non-dependent on the grid to deliver needed electricity – to develop your own reliable, secure source of electricity. What can your facility do to lower peak need and/or produce power independently? Being energy independent is not cheap, but could be worth it to avoid or lessen the risks above.
An energy resiliency strategy consists of:

• Understanding your systems, equipment and peak electric needs;
• Understanding the effects of a power outage and what redundancies exist to minimize its chances of happening;
• Estimating when/how you are most vulnerable to a potential interruption;
• Designing of absolute needs should there be a loss of power. Which systems must be maintained and which are less critical?

Options:

• Sufficient emergency back-up power or combined heat & power (CHP);
• Monitors to detect when grid power is interrupted – even in neighboring areas – so you are prepared and can automatically have backup systems supply power;
• Batteries to store excess power in case of an interruption.

Proper strategies and implementation can greatly reduce the chance of your facility being impacted by a power interruption. Such long-term thinking is often a low priority. But in this summer of extremes, it is more important than ever to begin to plan and implement smart strategies to reduce the risk and impacts of electricity outages. Make sure you put money in your budget to begin such planning soon.

CCES can help your firm develop an energy resiliency strategy and plan to assess and lessen the risk of power interruptions and improve your bottom line. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or karell@CCESworld.com.