This website uses cookies primarily for visitor analytics. Certain pages will ask you to fill in contact details to receive additional information. On these pages you have the option of having the site log your details for future visits. Indicating you want the site to remember your details will place a cookie on your device. To view our full cookie policy, please click here. You can also view it at any time by going to our Contact Us page.

Close

Power resilience is key to avoiding downtime

21 February 2022

Paul Brickman explores how food processing plants can mitigate the risk of power outages. 

Food processing plants rely heavily on the uninterrupted availability of power, with storage, processing, cooking, refrigeration, packaging and a myriad of other processes all reliant on a constant flow of electricity. 

In a bid to meet the UK’s net-zero targets, there is an ongoing transition to reduce reliance on carbon-emitting sources such as coal, oil and natural gas. One of the challenges for renewable energy is its intermittency – energy generation falls when the wind stops blowing or when the sun goes down. This can reduce the grid’s resilience to sudden changes in frequency, which in turn can result in temporary blackouts or planned outages. This, combined with an increase in blackouts related to extreme weather conditions, such as those experienced during Storm Arwen at the end of November 2021, means that businesses which rely on power to operate would do well to invest in backup power systems to avoid costly downtime. 

There is no avoiding the fact that the food processing industry is a heavy consumer of power. As well as the more obvious power draws in the form of equipment, lights, HVAC, and refrigeration, an increased focus on traceability and automation means this resulted in reliance on electricity. 

Without an emergency backup power plan, food and beverage businesses put their customers, their products, and their profits at risk. 

Many businesses opt to mitigate this risk by having an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) or backup generator in case of a grid emergency. However, data from Crestchic Loadbanks, a company that supplies power testing equipment, suggests that these backup power systems are not tested often enough to ensure they will work when called on.

Testing backup power 
Backup power systems should be tested both at the commissioning and installation stage and at regular intervals once installed. Just as a car which has been sitting idle on a driveway for months may not start first time, a backup generator needs to be powered up to ensure it will do the job when required. 

The simplest way to achieve this is by connecting the generator or UPS to a load bank. These vital but misunderstood items of machinery are used to apply an electrical load to a backup generator which replicates the load that it would be under in the event of a power failure. 

Advice from the team at Crestchic is simple: 

• Understand the risks: Understand what the impact of a power loss would be on your site and calculate the cost of potential disruption. 
• Have a plan: Make sure you have a power resilience plan in place. Invest in backup power systems to keep production rolling. 
• Make sure any existing backup systems work effectively: Test your systems at commissioning and on an ongoing basis to ensure they can meet critical loads in the event of any lapse in supply. 

In the last two years alone, the UK has experienced two of the biggest power outages in a decade. On the 9th August 2019, and more recently during November 2021, power cuts caused chaos in many parts of the country, with transport links down, manufacturing processes halted, IT systems crashing and many businesses with complete loss of power. Although power can often be restored relatively quickly, energy loss can be highly damaging – both in terms of lost productivity, potential reputational impact and equipment damage, which is why it is so critical that organisations are well prepared. 

Paul Brickman is sales and marketing director at Crestchic Loadbanks.


Contact Details and Archive...

Print this page | E-mail this page