Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

What would the holiday season be without thousands of twinkling lights and luminous trees? Well for one town in Tuolumne County California, this very idea was a very frightening thought and one it refused to consider.

Accordingly, even the absence of electricity couldn’t stop the town from holding its annual Christmas tree lightning earlier this month. Thanks to a generator, and enthusiasm from crowds, the Twain Harte Christmas tree lighting went on even as businesses and residents were left in the dark because of power outages that night.

“As we move into the holidays, utility power providers must face two potentially severe threats: winter weather events and unusual usage patterns,” Duston Nixon, marketing communications specialist for power protection company Minuteman UPS/Para Systems (News - Alert), told TMCnet when asked about the frequency of power outages during the holiday time. “As everyone is well aware, ice and snow bring down trees and power lines, and can leave widespread areas without electricity for days and even weeks as crews work to repair the damage. Likewise, travel and business closings create demands which are outside the norm, and can lead to rolling blackouts.”“In cases like these, vital components such as communications and security systems should be backed up with a redundant system of extended runtime capable uninterruptible power supplies such as Minuteman's EnterprisePlus and Endeavor Series, working in combination with gas or diesel generators,” he added. “This redundancy eliminates what is known as a 'single point of failure', and will ensure continuous uptime even if problems occur with one of the backup systems.”

Minuteman is a leading provider of power protection and management products and offers a family of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) for computers, servers, peripherals, voice and data communication systems, security systems and other mission-critical equipment.With winter officially upon us, Nixon took some time to sit down with TMCnet and talk about downtime during the white season.

According to Nixon, winter months can often lead to unfamiliar usage patterns for utility companies. Specifically, this past February 2011, Minuteman experienced that for itself in its Carrollton, Texas, headquarters, as the area was “punished with record lows for over a week.”

“Increased usage by electric heating systems, coupled with much of the population staying at home during the day, required utility providers to enact rolling blackouts to meet demand,” Nixon said. “Thanks to a full complement of backup equipment that includes several rack-mount units for the phone and network systems, along with desktop units for each workstation, our offices were able to maintain communications throughout these outages.”As we officially say goodbye to fall and look ahead to four long months of winter, Nixon suggests that it is important for businesses and individuals to consider the potential consequences of downtime as the threat of weather and holiday-related outages grows.