Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

When US Airways had a power outage at the end of last month, there were all kinds of inconveniences for passengers and revenue losses for the company.

Flights on the popular airline were delayed and the company’s website was down, too.

US Airways explained the incident was caused by a power outage near one of its data centers in Phoenix, Ariz., reported Datacenter Dynamics.

The Associated Press (News - Alert) also reported that Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport had long lines at the ticket counters due to the outage.

US Airways restored its systems on June 10 – the same day as the outage. But the outage kept customers from making reservations, checking in online, changing flights or checking their flight status, The AP said.

In addition, Fox News reported delays and flight cancellations in airports “across the country,” including Albany International Airport.

The events that day show the growing importance of power protection. And a power protection device arguably is well worth the investment – given the losses when power outages occur.

“One study conducted by J.D. Power & Associates found that the average business experiences 5.7 outages per year,” Duston Nixon, a marketing official at Minuteman UPS/Para Systems, told TMCnet. “Without protection, this means that 5.7 times per year business cannot be conducted. Though the average outage lasts only 10 minutes, the time to reboot equipment is much longer, not to mention time lost due to unsaved work and/or corrupted data.”

In addition, actual power outages account for just 5 percent of power problems, Nixon said.

“Other problems such as sags/brownouts, surges, and spikes can dramatically shorten equipment life and corrupt valuable data,” he added.

The Electric Power Research Institute says a one-second power outage on average costs a business $1,477, and the cost for a one-hour outage is $7,795. Taken together, outages cost the U.S. economy between $104 and $164 billion a year, TMCnet said.

“The initial cost of most of our UPS products can be easily recovered the first time an outage occurs,” Nixon said. “This is true for our lowest priced offerings, the EnSpire Series Standby, which can support a desktop PC or network equipment, as it is for our enterprise-level Endeavor Series, which can support an entire network or server system.”

“Protection for the phone and network systems means that customer calls will still be answered; protection at workstations means employees can focus on their tasks, not worry about losing an hour’s work if the lights flicker; and perhaps most importantly, managers and owners can sleep well at night knowing security systems, cameras, and DVRs will be active whether the power is or not,” Nixon said.

Put simply, downtime is not an option for businesses today.

“Gone are the days of handwriting receipts when a problem occurs – if power goes down, so does business,” Nixon said.