Some geopolitical locations have higher quality power generation and distribution systems than others. Quality and wealth aren't necessarily in direct proportion. In my career, I've seen consistently poor delivery of electric power in affluent areas. But to be fair, some factors are out of the control of the power system operators, such as weather and geologic conditions. Organizations that experience more than an acceptable level of power outages (for whatever reason) need to consider the following options to assure a continuous delivery of clean power to critical systems:
- Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): Usually two systems in one. A UPS has circuitry that cleans incoming power of spikes, surges, and other noise so IT equipment receives the cleanest possible power. A UPS system also has banks of batteries that can become the primary power source for a short time - usually a fraction of an hour.
- Electric generator: For power outages that last more than several minutes, you need an electric generator, in addition to a UPS, to assure power availability for as long as several days.
- Fuel storage: For organizations that may experience power outages that last more than a few days (and if you can't easily get fresh supplies of fuel), consider building a fuel storage facility. With such a fuel storage facility, you can have continuous electric power, even during prolonged outages. UPS and generators work together - you need both to assure continuous power. Generators take up to two minutes to come online, so you need a UPS to fill the gap between the utility outage and when the generator can come online. Similarly, a UPS can't supply power for very long, which requires a generator to provide power for up to several days.
