A Guide To Ensuring Power In The Workplace
About Blue Box Batteries
Blue Box Batteries are a specialist provider of battery power solutions for a host of commercial and domestic applications.
The Blue Box Batteries team have firmly positioned themselves as a trusted, established, and leading provider in the British battery market. The business’ head office is located in Hammerley Enterprise Park, Burnetts Lane, Eastleigh.
Benefits of Protecting Business Power
Frequently checking that sufficient power is being distributed in the workplace can save your business both time and money by ensuring IT infrastructure and critical building services remain powered and online.
This will enable day-to-day business to continue to operate efficiently and without interruption. If any potential faults or issues are identified, they should be rectified at the earliest stage possible resulting in minimal disruption to your business infrastructure.
Implementing this process will make sure:
• Staff productivity levels remain high
• The threat of power outages and periods of downtime will be significantly reduced
• The safety of your work colleagues and employees is maintained and not compromised
• Communication with clients and customers can be maintained at all times
• The overall risks to your business are minimised
Without regular and thorough checks, the impact will be far more detrimental to your business should a power failure or fault occur.
Checking Office Power
Within your premises, there will be a vast range of devices, systems and technologies which rely on a smooth and sufficient power supply in order for them to function properly.
• Some of the core examples include:
• Data centres
• Emergency lighting systems
• Fire alarms
• Security systems
• Telecoms and IT devices
Losing power in any instance can cause damaging implications. However, the severity and impact on your business will ultimately depend on which area has been affected.
To combat this, as mentioned, you should carry out regular checks to make sure that everything is working to the required standard.
Please Note: At this stage it’s important to remember that you should never attempt to carry out anything technical if you’re not sure what you’re doing. Instead, seek professional advice to avoid causing further issues and headaches for your business.
Basic Checks
In contrast to the more technical areas, there are some basic checks that can be completed without the need of an expert.
These include:
• Walking around the premises and observing if all lights and illuminated signs are lit up properly.
• Checking that emergency lighting isn’t flickering or cutting out.
• Asking departments if they have experienced faults, shortages or downtime with IT or telecoms systems.
• Making sure that all fire alarms are working and are loud enough for colleagues in the building to hear.
• Checking for any wear and tear or general ageing to the batteries you are using.
• Seeking advice from a technical professional if you do observe any major issues.
In the event where you do notice that certain technologies, systems or devices are not functioning properly, then it might be time for a new battery.
Many of the examples listed above are powered using a valve-regulated lead-acid battery (commonly referred to as a VRLA battery).
To ensure that building facilities and IT equipment remain online during a power outage, your business should also have a UPS installed in the premises.
Implementing a UPS
Standing for uninterruptible power supply, a UPS provides instant backup power if the mains power fails.
This means that servers and IT equipment can continue to function properly without any downtime and your business won’t lose any valuable content or data as a result.
A UPS works by powering the connected electrical load as soon as the mains power fails using power from the batteries installed within its system. Once power is up and running again, the mains takes over and the UPS batteries will charge back to their full state ready for future use.
Whilst running via UPS, your telecoms, computer networks, and security systems will be provided with a clean power supply until the initial mains outage is resolved.
A UPS is the perfect way to ensure that power is maintained throughout the workplace during a disaster. Without this option, your business could experience the following:
• Decreased staff productivity
• Significant and damaging financial implications
• Lost communication with customers, clients and staff
• Downtime across business departments
• Loss of valuable customer, client, and staff data/content
When you weigh up the cost of installing a UPS against the implications that could be caused if the mains power was to fail, it’s not hard to see why so many businesses utilise this invaluable technology.
If your business doesn’t currently have a UPS in operation, we strongly advise getting this in place. This is even more relevant if your company has data centres and high volumes of information and content that you need to protect.
Find out more about what a UPS is by taking a look at this Blue Box Batteries blog post.
Why Do Batteries Fail?
Losing power can be highly frustrating, but it’s important for you to understand what causes the batteries supplying the power to fail.
If you are aware of the reasons behind this, then measures can be put in place to reduce the risk of a similar situation happening again in the future.
There are a number of reasons as to why batteries fail, but some of the most common causes include:
• Incorrect operating temperatures
• Loose connections or inter-cell linking
• Incorrect float charge voltage
• General ageing and wear and tear
• Lack of maintenance
• Loss of electrolyte
Operating temperatures can greatly affect the performance and service life of a standby battery, so it is important to make sure that the batteries are being stored in a sufficient environment and within the correct operating parameters recommended by the manufacturer of the battery.
It is worth considering that if battery room ambient temperature conditions are 0 degrees Celsius, this could reduce the capacity of the battery by up to 20-30%. In contrast, excessive room temperature will also be an issue for standby batteries - as a guide, every 10 degrees above 25 degrees centigrade will half the service life of a VRLA battery. Optimum battery room temperature is 20 – 25 degrees centigrade, maintaining this ambient temperature will ensure that batteries provide maximum service life and reliable power.
In any instance where you notice that a battery isn’t working, you should replace it as soon as possible.
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Replacing Your Batteries
VRLA and UPS batteries can be purchased directly from the Blue Box Batteries website.
If you find your standby system requires a new battery then don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team of professional experts.
We can assist you with any questions you have relating to which brand to choose or which battery is most suitable for your business requirements.
If you fail to replace your batteries as soon as you notice any issues then your business may experience major problems further down the line. Speak to the professionals and make sure that you’ve got the correct batteries in place so your business can operate to its full potential.
Social Details
Thanks for checking out our guide to ensuring power in the workplace, we hope you’ve found the information useful. Don’t forget that you can keep up-to-date with the latest news, tips and advice by following the Blue Box Batteries blog as well as the social profiles listed below:
Blue Box Batteries
For further professional advice, the friendly team here at Blue Box Batteries are more than happy to assist you. Contact the team directly or alternatively call us on 02381 789 197.
References
http://ecmweb.com/ops-amp-maintenance/ups-battery-maintenance-101
Image Credits
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