Many individuals and businesses fail to recognize the significance of having an emergency generator until they experience power outages that disrupt their operations. However, there are those who cannot afford to be without a reliable power source at any time.
While you may be able to manage without emergency power at your home or small business, industries such as hospitals and manufacturers depend on emergency generators to keep their operations running smoothly 24/7. In fact, a power outage of just a few hours could result in significant financial losses for these companies, not to mention life safety concerns.
Here are 7 major industries that require backup generators to ensure a consistent power supply:
Health Care Industry
The need for emergency backup power is crucial for hospitals and healthcare facilities worldwide, in fact, it’s a requirement. Especially in today’s times, reliable electricity is essential for almost every aspect of patient care. Whether carrying out important procedures in an emergency room or sustaining life in an intensive care unit, dependable backup power equipment is an absolute necessity for these facilities. Hospitals are vast complexes with multiple buildings that consume significant amounts of energy. To keep them operational, several backup power generators of 2MW or more may be necessary.
As per the National Electrical Code, hospitals must have enough emergency power to meet all their electrical requirements. The power generated from these emergency generators ensures that critical care and health care professionals can carry out their duties without interruptions, even when utility power fails.
Several hospitals utilize both UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems and generators to guarantee continuous operation when transitioning to generator power. This guarantees that vital and sensitive equipment like oxygen compressors, dialysis machines, and ventilators as well as computer systems function uninterrupted, even if there is a loss of utility power.
Food Industry
Over the past 20 years, automation and specialized, advanced processing machinery has expanded exponentially into the food processing industry. This machinery requires reliable, consistent power. Add to that the perishable nature of the materials being processed and it is easy to understand the importance of a critical power strategy. Large food processing plants easily require 2MW+ of standby power to make sure all the processing equipment stays operational during any power outage. To comply with health regulations, it is required that all food items remain fresh and are stored in areas with temperature control. The food industry employs emergency generators to facilitate storage, processing, production, and distribution.
In a similar manner, the restaurant industry relies on backup generators to ensure continuous power supply for various systems including refrigeration, lighting, kitchen equipment, air conditioning, heating, and POS systems.
Agricultural Industry
In the United States, there are more than two million farms spanning across 100 million acres of farmland and employing 25 million individuals. The American Agricultural Industry plays a vital role in the production, processing, and distribution of all the food consumed in the nation, contributing an impressive $1.05 trillion to the country’s GDP.
The consequences of natural disasters that disrupt the utility supply can greatly affect the functioning of various industries. These industries rely on electricity for greenhouse operations, irrigation systems, climate control, milking, cultivation, and more.
Utility Industry
Water treatment plants rely on a constant supply of power to keep their waste pumps running around the clock, all year long. Any equipment failure caused by power outages could be catastrophic and result in an environmental disaster. To ensure an uninterrupted power supply for the thousands of customers who rely on it for their daily lives, electric utilities often use generators to supplement local generation whenever there is a spike in demand for electricity. These generators, which may have a capacity of 2MW or more, are just one of the many ways in which technology is used to make our lives safer and more comfortable.
Air Transportation Industry
The Federal Aviation Administration predicts that by 2032, more than 1.2 billion people will be flying each year. Airports, like hospitals, operate around the clock and cannot afford to experience power outages that could disrupt their operations. Reliable power is crucial for monitoring airport activities, powering communication systems, lighting runways, securing stations, supporting vendors, and operating radars, among other essential functions.
In simple terms, airports require a reliable backup power source to function effectively as they cannot operate without electricity.
Manufacturing Industry
Electrical power loads in the manufacturing industry, whether for sensitive microprocessors, precision chemistry equipment, or even brewing a beer, cannot afford for automation equipment to come to a halt in the midst of a manufacturing cycle. The product waste due to power failure is a very real loss of money, time, and even potentially damaged manufacturing equipment. Larger manufacturing facilities require multiple megawatts of reliable backup power, as an added insurance policy that manufacturing companies need to protect their product and their business.
Data Centers (IT Industry)
Data centers play a crucial role in the IT industry by housing its infrastructure and ensuring system reliability to serve multinational industries. As data centers handle a wide range of functions such as bank transactions, internet searches, communications, government entities, and online shopping, among others, downtime is not an option. Therefore, data centers require an emergency power supply to sustain their business operations, including storing, processing, and sharing data and applications. To prevent operational losses, data centers need emergency generator systems that can guarantee 24/7 power and many provide fully redundant systems, as well as multiple fuel sources.
Conclusion
To summarize, various entertainment, hospitality, tourism, retail, telecommunications, and finance industries also require emergency generators. If your business needs an emergency power supply, we suggest investing in a backup generator as soon as possible to ensure maximum business uptime. At Zabatt Power Systems, we assist our clients in implementing power solutions that are reliable and efficient. Our sales and installation teams are uniquely suited to assist you in finding the right critical power solutions for your business and can assist you through the design, procurement, permitting, and installation process, as well as throughout the lifecycle of the equipment. For more information, click the button below.