If your business is preparing for the festive break, you’re likely to have a long to-do list and not much time to complete it. This can be a time-pressured couple of months, where staffing is reduced and demand can fluctuate.
In the chaos of Christmas preparations, it’s easy to forget to put protections in place for essential systems such as power. However, it really is crucial to make sure your emergency power and contingency plans are fully tested and ready to go. Christmas can be a power-hungry time of year, and any downtime can potentially be more damaging – especially if you don’t have as many staff around to deal with problems.
This is why now is the time to put measures in place to keep your company’s power systems secure over Christmas.
Why Christmas Puts Extra Pressure on Power Systems
There are a number of reasons that Christmas can be a particularly risky time for unexpected power outages:
Cold Weather Stress
Low and even freezing temperatures during December can increase the demand on heating systems on site. There’s also a higher risk of outages and grid instability due to storms, frost, ice and other extreme winter weather.
Cold weather can also lead to potential problems with backup generators and other emergency power systems starting up.
Irregular Operating Hours And Busy Periods
For certain business types – such as manufacturing and retail for example – Christmas is one of the busiest times of year. This means extra pressure put on equipment and facilities, and on your power supply.
This can be exacerbated by extended opening hours and special events (particularly for retailers), or late-night manufacturing runs. All of these can increase the electrical load, potentially beyond its limit.
Reduced On-Site Staff
Many facilities run with a skeleton crew over the festive period. This might mean a lower electrical demand, but it can also mean that faults go unnoticed for hours or even days at a time.
Increased Security Concerns
While in many ways Christmas itself can be a ‘quiet time’ for many businesses, it can also be a time of vulnerability. Quiet sites with minimal staff can potentially be targets for vandalism or tampering, which can affect power systems as well as valuable equipment.
Temporary Power Solutions for the Christmas Period
If your organisation has a backup power system already in place, now is the time to have it fully tested and serviced ahead of Christmas.
If it doesn’t, it’s strongly recommended to consider getting a temporary power solution to cover the festive period. A backup generator can provide short-term load support, cover scheduled shutdowns and generally act as a safety net in case of unexpected outages. You may not need it, but it’s important to know that it’s there – just in case.
Hiring a generator is a fast, flexible way to protect and bolster your company’s power supply over Christmas. It’s possible to hire generators in a range of sizes and capacities, including long-term solutions.
This could be the ideal solution for:
- Retailer preparing for their busiest period of the year
- Cold storage companies needing uninterrupted refrigeration
- Hospitality venues hosting seasonal events
- Construction sites working through December
- Facilities undergoing planned maintenance over the festive break.
Remote Monitoring to Stay in Control When Staff Are Away
Another essential task to check off your pre-Christmas ‘to-do’ list is to plan how you’ll monitor power systems over the holidays. With a minimal staff presence, it can be difficult to identify faults early enough to prevent major issues.
This is where solutions such as remote monitoring come in. Your generator specialist can provide 24/7 remote monitoring of real-time performance data, along with alerts for low fuel, high load or system errors. Faults can be detected immediately, and an engineer sent to take care of the issue before it escalates.
This could be vital in preventing downtime and keeping operations running smoothly over Christmas.
Why Planning Ahead Matters During the Christmas Break
Every business should have a Christmas contingency plan, ideally drawn up well in advance. One of the main reasons is important is the higher cost of downtime at Christmas, as well as the increased pressure on lead times and production deadlines.
For example, an outage at a crucial moment could lead to a missed deadline, a lost client and a breach of contract – all of which mean thousands in lost revenue, as well as damaging your company’s reputation. To spell out just how expensive it could be, consider this – research has found that during peak times, a typical e-commerce site could lose up to $50,000 an hour due to an outage.
A Christmas power plan should ideally include:
- Power demand estimates and forecasting
- Backup generator capacity checks
- Fuel reserves
- Maintenance scheduling before the break
- Remote monitoring setup
- Emergency contact protocols.
How Pleavin Power Keeps Businesses Powered Over Christmas
Working with a trusted partner such as Pleavin Power is one of the best ways to ensure your company’s power supply is secured over Christmas. We offer 24/7 nationwide support over the festive period, with rapid response times and engineers on call even on Christmas Day.
Our comprehensive service includes short and long-term generator hire, planned maintenance, load testing and emergency repairs. We can handle remote monitoring, so that you can relax over Christmas knowing that an expert is keeping a close eye on your energy systems.
