COVER STORY IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU In a world increasingly reliant on connected services, the cost of generator failure is becoming mo
In March 2018, a power outage affecting one of Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) largest US datacentre regions caused havoc to businesses, knocking hundreds of online services offline across the world.
Over 240 ‘critical’ services were reportedly affected, including Amazon’s voice assistant technology Alexa and the firm’s Direct Connect service which links organisations’ datacentres with the AWS cloud system.
For cloud services, power outages can be disastrous, since the interconnectivity of the services means downtime to one part of the cloud can quickly ripple over into other areas. What can start as a power outage impacting a small set of services can quickly cascade into a major event.
In the eighth Annual Uptime Institute Data Centre Survey, conducted between February and May in 2018, 31% of respondents experienced an IT downtime incident or severe service degradation in the past year – an increase from 25% the previous year.
In the past three years, almost half of the survey respondents, which included responses from 867 data centre operators and IT practitioners globally from enterprise and service provider facilities, had an outage.
Almost 80% said their most recent outage was preventable, with on-premise power failures, network failures, and software or IT systems errors being the most common primary causes.
For most, it took one to four hours to fully recover, with one-third of respondents reporting a recovery time of five hours or longer.
It will come as no surprise that generator failures can be extremely costly to your business.
It has been estimated that a single hour of downtime costs a small business an average of £800 and a large commercial organisation £8,500. This is before any costs for repairing damaged IT equipment are taken into account.
Four major consequences for businesses experiencing power outages are:
• Wasted wage and salary cost, • Lost revenue • Remedial costs • Damages and penalties
Ensuring reliability of services Installation of an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) system will provide a seamless power protection system that can cope with any power outage, with a clean, ‘no break’ power supply.
It is an excellent way to protect mission critical systems. 24 | TOMORROW’S FM
However, it is no guarantee of continual power as UPS components and UPS batteries can fail if they are not properly maintained to a high standard.
A planned programme of maintenance should always be considered as an essential part of any standby power protection system.
Operating out of headquarters in North Yorkshire, PPSPower is one of the industry’s largest and most respected providers of generator servicing, fire pump and UPS maintenance and repair solutions. The business employs a team of dedicated engineers which are based across the country, from Yorkshire and Manchester, down to London and up to Scotland. It works carefully to understand customers’ needs and develop cost-effective solutions that maximises the reliability of their systems.
Stephen Peal, Director for PPSPower, explained: “I think it is fair to say that many companies are unprepared for the impact caused by power blackouts and are often unaware of the true costs and impact that they can have on their operations.
“Organisations must be educated in the basic generator functions and understand, how to properly execute maintenance and repair checks in order to save them unnecessary down time, due to system malfunctions.”
Stephen added: “Maintenance of generators is absolutely essential if you want to get the best out of your system. Downtime can be a costly inconvenience, and in extreme cases, even dangerous. There are a number of excellent measures that can be taken to prevent unwanted disruptions.”
Prevention is better than cure There are many common culprits for generator breakdown that customers should be aware of and are easily avoided. Battery failure, low coolant levels, fuel contamination and carbon build-up are all common causes of failure in diesel generators. Yet these can be easily resolved with a regular maintenance and service programme.
PPSPower offers tailored maintenance packages, with engineers available for callout 24/7. Maintenance packages are all bespoke, developed to customers’ specific requirements and can include the following services:
• 24-hour cover – 365 days a year • Environmental checks • Electro-mechanical checks • UPS functional testing • Battery Assessment • Provision of service sheets and documentation • Recommendations for remedial work • Advice to improve current system setups
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