Outage plan and kit
Write an emergency plan that outlines what your business will do during an outage. Keep the plan and an outage kit somewhere easy to access and make sure all staff know where to find it.
Visit the Power Outage Plan website for advice on writing a plan. You might want to consider including this information during staff inductions.
Your plan could include:
- instructions on keeping essential operations running
- managing safety risks to staff and customers
- steps to protect stock, IT systems and equipment
- communication processes for staff and customers.
Your outage kit could include:
- fully charged power banks with cables to charge your devices
- battery powered torches and radios – with extra batteries
- first aid kit
- non-perishable snacks LED candles
- bottled water
- cash
- list of emergency contacts.
Prepare your people
Make sure your staff are familiar with the outage plan and any business continuity plans. This includes knowing if they continue or stop work, security protocols and what to do if critical systems (such as elevators, EFTPOS or security gates) stop working.
Back up equipment
If your business has backup battery or generator systems, check them regularly to make sure they’re working properly. If your elevators or other critical infrastructure are connected to an alternate power supply, check the maximum number of systems that can run at the same time without overloading the generator.
Generators
We understand that during an outage, you may need to arrange an alternative source of power such as diesel-powered generators.
For any permanent or wired-in connections, contact us first so we can check it’s safe for our field teams to work on during an outage. You don’t need to contact us before connecting smaller generators but always use them with extreme caution and stay safe. To find out more about generator safety, visit the Energy Safe website.
Electrical equipment
Back up your computer files frequently and check autosave functions are on so that you do not lose any important work. Consider investing in uninterruptible power supply units for critical IT systems, so they can be shut down safely without corrupting data.
You can protect sensitive electrical and electronic equipment by switching them off and unplugging them before an outage, or if you notice dim or flickering lights. If your lights are dim or flickering, there may be a voltage variation in the electricity network. For more information, see Brownouts.