How disruptive is it when your power goes out? What does that do to your day?
Now, imagine how arresting it is for enterprises, multinational corporations, distribution centers (that Amazon package is not arriving today), banks, hospitals—you name it. There are thousands of business and critical service environments that require 24/7 uninterrupted power.
Nearly a year ago, the devastating power outages in at least 14 different U.S. states, where power was lost during the winter storms that swept through the country last February is an indictment of the escalating need for critical power systems. During those storms, more than 5 million customers dealt with rolling blackouts that lasted several days.
This month, Texas almost had revisionist history of the turmoil it suffered last February when it lost nearly 1.3 gigawatts of electrical generation—equating to about 1.5% of its winter capacity—when plunging winter temperatures hit the state at the start of January.
According to Bloomberg, during this month’s cold snap, gas production in Texas plunged by the most in nearly 11 months as instruments froze. The Texas Oil & Gas Association said outages occur routinely for a variety of reasons, including cold weather.
What are critical power systems?
Critical power systems are energy management operations that detect outages, alert back-up generators to automatically start, and provide the jewels necessary for mission-critical equipment. Simply put: critical power is any form of power that, if it were not available, would have disastrous consequences. Without it, basic operations would almost certainly grind to a halt.
In the technically reliant world we operate in, most businesses today cannot operate without their servers, telecommunication networks or basic electrical pipelines running at optimal levels. In fact, with power outages increasing, businesses would be wise to take the time to have an energy audit. Classify what is critical, what is necessary and what is nominal for everyday operations. With such prioritizations, and a clear operational roadmap, businesses can save not only on operational costs, but also on overall energy usage.
For executives and managers of sizable operations such as real estate developers, financial services institutions, utilities or data centers, the main priority should be a reliable and resilient power supply that is secured and backed up in case of an outage.
There is no system that is totally unassailable to any power outage. But a thorough mapping and integration of redundant or augmented power systems is critical for any enterprise today. This is why it is important that businesses large and small need to have the right partner when connecting power sources-from electrical to bandwidth-rich networks. For more than 25 years, electrical installers like Hugh O’Kane Electric (HOK), led by President Hugh R O’Kane, have become a leading specializer in power projects for New York City and its metro area. The company has been upgrading, expanding and installing electrical networks for a variety of public and private enterprises on a regular basis for over 75 years..
This institutional expertise Hugh O’Kane is able to provide to private and public entities is paramount in order to design and implement network projects that can successfully expand their service offerings to increase their market share and gain more customers. This lineage and industry expertise has afforded Hugh O’Kane a competitive edge because it has expert knowledge of an area’s infrastructure and is able to work within the required parameters of existing networks much more easily. In doing so, Hugh O’Kane is able to take the time required to provide an alternative power infrastructure needed to ensure continuous, robust energy for municipalities, corporations and private enterprises.
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