Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

It may not be as exciting as hearing that you have a Snow Day, but students at Schenectady County Community College did get to relish in having a “Power Outage Day” yesterday, as an on-campus power outage forced administrators to cancel classes.

The upstate New York college’s main campus on Washington Avenue was left in the dark after a power surge caused an outage in the area. But it was not all sunbathing and day trips for Schenectady County Community College coeds, as classes were held out of the college's satellite office in City Center on State Street. All classes at the main campus were canceled until today.

Schools seem to be the biggest victims to power outages lately as just last week kids at West Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, N.C., had a delayed school start after intense thunderstorms left parts of Charlotte without power.

Specifically, strong wind gusts knocked down a tree on Little Rock Road, which caused power lines to come down and several power poles to be damage. The storm knocked out power for more than 1,000 customers in the area, and forced a day care center and other nearby businesses to open late.

A few weeks ago, schools in the Indian city of Coimbatore suffered from both expected and unexpected cuts in electrical power as they conducted their annual competitive examinations. Although written tests could still take place, exams in physics and computer science could not be conducted without electrical power. Many families near the school were also left in the dark, which made it difficult for students to study, do their homework and get to school on time, according to reports.

While losing power can be disastrous for businesses – as it means a loss of sales, access to critical data and the chance for the competition to step in –outages also spell disaster for schools, particularly now as middle and high schools prepare to close of the year and colleges ramp up for summer classes.

One company that understands just how important it is to keep schools up and running, even amidst inclement and stormy weather is Minuteman UPS/Para Systems (News - Alert), a provider of power protection units. 

Minuteman's battery backup and surge protection products have the tools necessary to protect entire campuses. Its offering includes surge protectors for non-critical components, RackMount UPS models, standby EnSpire series and line interactive Entrust (News - Alert), PRO-E, PRO-RT and EnterprisePlus series Uninterruptible Power Supplies for small- to medium-sized network and security device battery backup, and full on-line Endeavor UPSs for enterprise-wide systems requiring multiple hours of backup battery runtime.

“Educational institutions are not exempt from power-related problems,” Minuteman explained on its website. “Voltage spikes, power surges, brownouts and blackouts have no conscience when, or where, they strike. Classrooms, labs and administrative offices all are vulnerable and are guaranteed to be subjected to power problems throughout the year.”

For more on Minuteman’s educational power protection offerings, click here.