In a recent report undertaken by Centrica, nearly one-third of over 300 UK businesses surveyed did not have an energy resilience strategy in place in the event of a temporary power failure. 52% of the businesses expected to experience an energy-related failure in the near future, with 18% also suggesting that just one day without power would cause catastrophic consequences for the business.
Power outages are actually very common, with an alarming 81% of the businesses surveyed saying that an outage in the last 12 months has already caused them to experience unscheduled downtime with mixed consequences; 1 in 4 of these businesses confirmed that they had suffered equipment damage during the power outage with a smaller number confirming that they had lost inventory. 1 in 5 even suggested that the power outage had caused damage to their brand.
Forecasting for the future, 27% of these businesses believe that power outages will be more common in the next five years and 51% fear that an energy-related failure will occur in the next 12 months.
Though external problems on the grid, perhaps caused by lighting strikes, are almost impossible for businesses to predict, a whopping 67% of energy-related failures were caused due to poorly maintained equipment onsite.
The report aims to raise awareness to UK businesses about the importance of planning for energy failures with the surveys providing conclusive evidence that many businesses – small and large – are failing to manage their energy properly, whether this is reducing risks, forecasting for downtime or looking in to ways of increasing their own independence by generating and storing power onsite.