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Home / Connections / Energy for business / Energy continuity

Energy continuity

If your business is based in a dedicated commercial or industrial area, your local power supply will have been designed with high dependency in mind, but no power supply is 100% guaranteed all of the time. This is because trees come in contact with power lines, or damage is caused by vehicles hitting power poles or other electrical assets.

Below are some priorities we encourage all businesses to consider as part of their business continuity planning.

If you don’t yet have a business continuity plan, you may find the resources on this page helpful.

 

Managing your energy reliance

Many businesses learned the importance of having a business continuity plan after the Christchurch earthquake. If you are operating a business from a residential or rural property, contingency planning is even more important. Here are some priorities we encourage all businesses to consider:

  • Generator continuity
    Small and medium sized businesses often have their own back-up generators. This ensures business continuity during unplanned outages or during civil defence emergencies. Talk to an electrician about having a generator installed at your site as part of your continuity planning.
  • Quality surge protection
    All sensitive equipment needs to have good quality surge protection. If you are dependent on servers or desk-top computers for your business, ask your IT providers about a suitable uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to protect your equipment and keep you running during a power outage.
  • Alternative telecommunications
    Some telephone systems rely on power, especially Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) systems and portable telephones. If you have one of these systems, ask your telecommunications provider how you can divert it to a cell phone during a power outage so you don’t miss calls.
  • Rural resilience
    Customers have reported that some local telephone exchanges, particularly rural ones, regularly ‘go down’ if the power is off. If you are in a rural area, or relocating to one, it may pay to ask your telecommunications provider about the resilience of the local exchange.
  • Manual modes
    Increasingly, businesses are investing in electric security gates. All good providers offer a manual override option so you can get in and out when the power is off. Now is a good time to test that you can use it.

Click on the button below to access tools and expert advice from government and industry on business continuity and contingency planning for Kiwi businesses.

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