Are Your Generators Ready For Summer, High Temperatures And Rolling Blackouts?

Many companies, or other organizations that have facilities of basically any size, surely know how brutal the summer months can be with power outages and rolling blackouts. Just as the same issues during the winter were fading from your memory, now you have to worry about the high temperatures and sweltering heat of summer causing power problems for your facility. Such power issues typically occur in the form of blackouts or brownouts, and are presented when there is a dramatic influx in power usage by residents located on a particular power grid. As you can imagine, when it is ridiculously hot outside, many people flock indoors — cranking up the A/C and putting fans on full blast.

Living in Texas, I sure know how hot it can be in various parts of this country, and I really can’t blame people for wanting to cool off indoors, or by any means possible. Unfortunately, when everyone does so at the same time, it puts serious stress on the power grids, which is when outages occur. To prevent such from happening, or to at least reduce the effect that a summer power outage has, there are a couple things that can be done.

1. If you feel like hoping up on your soapbox, then try to get people to use less energy during the hottest parts of the day. While this can work, and people should generally conserve the energy they use during peak usage hours of the day, more often than not, the need to cool-off from hot weather trumps the urge to conserve electricity. With that said, measures such as Demand Response have helped communities become more aware of their power usage during these vulnerable times.

2. The other option is to buy a backup power generator for your facility in preparation for a summer power outage. In actuality, you should probably do this regardless of whether you take on the first option, as it is always best to be prepared for a blackout.

As mentioned, Demand Response protocol can be used to effectively reduce electricity usage during peak hours. Doing so will allow your facility to conserve energy when it counts, and if all else fails, hopefully you will have a backup generator to shield the burden of not having an active power grid to support your facility.

At Worldwide Power Products, we encourage all of our current and prospective clients to have generators, portable if possible, in case the local power grid fails during the summer. Additionally, we also tell people to encourage their local community facilities, like hospitals and churches, to also have generators, diesel, or any kind for that matter, ready in case of a summer power outage. When it comes to powering a facility that is vital to the needs of a community, relying on backup power generators and a Demand Response system is essential. There really is no better way to support large facilities within a community in such a way.

Conclusion

While the preventative measures of a Demand Response program can reduce the likelihood of blackouts through conservative energy usage when it counts the most, after it is too late and a power grid becomes overwhelmed, the best remedy is to have a backup generator ready to go. Personally, I have been witness to rolling blackouts, brownouts, and pretty much every other type of power outage you can think of. I have also been in situations where the building I was in simply did not have an adequate method of supplying backup power. So, I recommend taking the necessary steps to ensure your facility is prepared with a backup generator at all times, instead of wishing you had in the middle of a heat wave.