Powe outages

Business/Operations
#1

Does anybody suffer from this oftenly enough to be worried about?
We experience outages (planned or unplanned) at least 3 or 4 times a year.
We are new, trying to survive the COVID effect and just trying to keep our heads over the water.
Now we’ve been noticed that tomorrow there’s going to be a scheduled blackout for at least 4 hours.
We had to call our 4 customers (precious first 4 customers!!!) to tell them the space was not going to be available
Power generators are expensive and we still haven’t figured out whether the investment is really necessary or not

I would like to hear from anyone that experienced the same, or what kind of approach would be reasonable to balance service and financial sustainability.

Regards
Cecilia

#2

Hey Cecilia,

We’ve occasionally had power outages, not enough to worry about it, but I did take proactive measures to protect our network equipment AND be ready for a power outage. If people can still get in/out of the space, and if you’ve got windows, then if people are working from laptops all they absolutely need is wifi. Or at least, they could keep working for a few hours if all they had was wifi and a few hours of batter power.

We installed Cyberpower battery backups on all our network equipment. We could run our internet for most of a day without power. We have windows for light. And, frankly, those have been some of the funnier times in the space because we’re cobbling together shared solutions.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=cyberpower+battery+backups&gclid=CjwKCAjwgdX4BRB_EiwAg8O8HTg9TO0i-xs8GfCLivTh0JkBq-ik-CjTfxP3QjPPVyGmaYiSgYdvGhoCI3cQAvD_BwE&hvadid=313665330926&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9006423&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=4577100478366610445&hvtargid=kwd-301150839771&hydadcr=18037_9812657&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_7m9qnidtpk_e

1 Like
#3

Hi Cecilia.
We have a small coworking space in Costa Rica, and our electricity goes out often enough (and rarely do we get any notice!). Sometimes for just a few minutes, sometimes for hours.

We found a small UPS at PriceSmart (like Costco) for under $100. It won’t power up lights or AC or anything major, but we can easily get about 3 hours if it’s just powering the router and wifi. It also provides another level of surge protection, plus, if the electricity goes out, there’s no interruption to internet service (no dropped calls!). But you will also need to determine how the infrastructure affects cable/fiber. Sometimes if you lose electricity you will also lose cable.

Good luck!

#4

We’ll have shorter interruptions a few times a year, almost always unplanned due to storms, accidents, etc. I bought battery-backup (UPS) devices to keep our internet, WiFi and phones working for an hour if the power goes out. Lights aren’t really a problem as we have windows. Most people are working on laptops so they can run on their own batteries. Heat or air conditioning isn’t really a problem for that hour. Beyond that time, it can start to get uncomfortable. The members understand this stuff is beyond our control.

By the way, UPS batteries, just like the ones in emergency lights, really need to be tested maybe twice a year. Everything will look fine and the system shows 100% capacity, but when you switch over to battery they die in a minute or two. I’ve found it annoying that the test button on emergency lights only tests if the lights work, not if the batteries are usable. I have to flip a breaker to give them a real-life test. Expect to replace batteries every 3-5 years.

Glen Ferguson

Phone: 301-732-5165
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.coworkfrederick.com
Address: 122 E Patrick St, Frederick, MD 21701

#5

That´s for all the replies!
I think we are going to go with the UPS solution. It seems to be the most affordable and reasonable.
Since our space has a eco-friendly message, we are also considering installing solar panels to charge the ups batteries as well!
Thanks again for the help and hope all of you stay safe and productive!
Regards
Cecilia