All Businesses Need Power; How Much Does a Power Outage Cost?
How much does a power outage cost? Well, how dependent is your business upon power? It seems like a silly question to ask. But have you considered how much even an hour of downtime from a small thunderstorm might cost you and your business? The Ponemon Institute estimates that each minute without power costs an average of $8,850. Of course each business or organization is unique, but all can agree that a blackout is time and money wasted.
Has a telecom disruption ever taken down phone and internet? It’s like everything comes to a screeching halt and work is put on hold. For many, it’s difficult to find something to work on until connectivity resumes. For these reasons, it’s important that your business calculates the risk of power outages and their average costs. If you are a company in a region prone to hurricanes and power outages like Myrtle Beach, it’s worthwhile to explore light commercial and commercial generator options as a backup power solution for annual hurricanes.
Calculate the Cost of Downtime from a Power Outage
The formulas from DataFoundry below can be used to get a rough estimate of how much downtime costs your business:
Use the following formulas to obtain a ballpark estimate for labor costs and revenue loss per hour of downtime:
Productivity cost = E x % x C x H
E = number of employees affected
% = percentage they are affected
C = average cost of employees per hour
H = number of downtime hours
Revenue loss = (GR/TH) x I x H
GR = gross annual revenue
TH = total annual business hours
% = percentage impact
H = hours of downtime
The difficult part of the equations is determining the percentage of impact. If you have a telecom or data center or run a manufacturing facility, obviously the percentage would be much higher than if you run a landscaping business. Generally speaking, how much does downtime affect your productivity? Can you work without it? Or is it inherent to basic business functions?
DataFoundry also considers the costs of intagibles like reputation and reliability within your industry:
Other costs are more difficult to determine, such as costs to the company’s reputation. Is it possible your organization would lose customers as a result of downtime? Would your company miss important deadlines or be unavailable to customers and prospects at a critical moment? Would customers and prospects lose trust in your company, and to what extent?
When exploring commercial generator options, it’s valuable to compare the costs associated with productivity and revenue loss with the costs of a backup power solution.
Commercial Generators Keeps Businesses Up and Running
In a previous blog we shared the story of the one hotel in an area of Wrightsville Beach, NC, with a commercial generator. When a traffic accident took out power in the area for 4 hours, one hotel and restaurant was able to keep doors open when everyone else was forced to relocate guests and close. In some cases, a 4-hour power disruption costs more than the generator.
Standby commercial generators provide full-power generation immediately. When a commercial generator’s system detects utility disruption, it instantly transfers to generated power. Commercial generators connect directly to LP, natural gas, or diesel lines and function automatically.
Cooper Electrical Services is the only unlimited license electrical contractor providing full service (sales, installation, service) of generators in the Myrtle Beach area. Our knowledgable generator team is happy to get to know your business to find the right power solution for your needs. To learn more, visit the Commercial Generator section of our website or contact us today.
