Five Impacts of Power Disruption You Need to Consider

1

Loss of Revenue

Lost revenue due to power disruption can come in a variety of forms, but almost any industrial or commercial business can be impacted by it. Power disruption can significantly impact on, delay or outright prevent your organisation fulfilling the needs of your customers. This can include lost productivity or spoiled raw materials for manufacturers, disrupted operating times for retail and leisure, and unfulfilled or delayed orders for a wide range of businesses.

2

Damaged or Disrupted Equipment

Even momentary power outages can result in damage to critical, sensitive equipment. Computer equipment and digital controls can be damaged if not properly shut down, while sensitive circuit boards can risk being damaged when power is restored and surges back into equipment. Even minor changes in voltage can be enough to trip PLCs or digitised systems, turning a momentary power disruption into a prolonged, damaging outage as they need time to reset.

3

Lost Data

Even for sites that already have Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) in place, this is frequently used to protect critical infrastructure that may not include computers and data servers. An unexpected shutdown can result in the loss of critical data that may not be retrievable. The steady increase of digitisation means that while businesses benefit from a growing wealth of valuable data and insight, they are also severely impacted if that data is compromised.

4

Reputational Damage

A study by Deloitte found that reputational damage is the most significant strategic concern for surveyed C-suite executives. Power disruption can impact on your organisation’s reputation in a number of ways, including damaging your relationships with key customers due to delays and missed deadlines. For consumer-facing businesses, failing to implement an effective net zero strategy is rapidly becoming one of the biggest factors that can compromise your company reputation.

5

Compromised Sustainability

Implementing power resilience technologies such as UPS batteries or backup generators can help to ensure your site continues to function in the case of a major power disruption, but they can also undermine your efforts towards achieving net-zero. UPS can significantly increase your site’s power consumption, while even cleaner forms of backup generation such as Combined Heat and Power (CHP) run off fossil fuels, typically diesel.