Best Strategies for Planned Power Outages
With all of the snowstorms that are happening this winter, you may be wondering how to prepare for a power outage. We have compiled some tips on what you can do in advance to make sure your home is safe and comfortable during an unexpected blackout.
We hope you’ll walk away from this blog post with some helpful tips for surviving a power outage. If you have any questions or would like to know more about how we can help your family prepare, please reach out! Stay warm and safe always.
1. Prepare Inventories
Strategies: Make a list of all the things you rely on that need electricity. Get batteries and other power sources so your gadgets will work when there’s no electric supply coming from outside – for instance if we’re hit by an EMP blast! Make sure to have enough flashlights in every room, as well as checking whether or not your home phone would be able to function during such an event. Whatever else is up in the air about this scenario may be solved with these preparations ahead of time.
• Generators are a great option for power outages
• Stay away from your appliances and electronics if there is a surge
• Make sure you have alternate plans for refrigerating medicines or other important food items
• If supplies at heating and cooling locations run out, make an alternative plan
Impact on the Consumer: When the power goes out, you should discard any food that has been exposed to a temperature of 40 degrees or higher for two hours or more. Throw away anything with an unusual odor, color, and/or texture as well. If your medications need to be refrigerated but the electricity is off longer than one day contact a medical professional immediately so they can give you advice on what type of medication will work best in this situation.
2. Plan on Using Less Power
Strategies: Outage planning is designed to minimize risk, and the only way for plant operators and their partners to innovate is by being willing to try new approaches. The key to outage planning lies in taking smart steps that won’t derail an outage if unsuccessful or cause irreversible issues.
• New technologies that power the industry
• Unique partnerships to share best practices
• Data analytics for planning and efficiency
Impact on the Consumer: We are boldly moving toward the future, but our industry is still in its infancy. One day we’ll look back on this time period and be proud of ourselves for overcoming adversity to help make a better world possible! Reducing outage durations at one station is just one small step towards reducing them across an entire nuclear power plant.
3. Train for Outages
Strategies: Provide staff training before the outage begins to make sure that your employees know what they are doing when the power goes out. Trying to train less-skilled workers during a short window of an outage is stressful for both trainer and trainees, so it’s best not to try anything new in such a time constraint situation; allow enough time to go step by step and answer any questions on everyone’s mind.
Save time on your training process
Avoid the stress that comes with trying to train during an outage
Let your employees know what they are doing when the power goes out
Take your team through a step by step process and answering any questions
Impact on the Consumer: Training staff before an outage is important to ensure the most efficient use of a time-sensitive situation. With enough preparation, trainers are able to build upon skills that less-skilled workers may not have fully grasped in training sessions and ease the burden for both parties during short windows right after outages happen.
4. View Outage Reports
Strategies: Find out what is going on with the power in your area and report it! The PG&E outage map has detailed information about current electrical outages, including a summary of when they started and how long before restoration. You can also see specific details like preliminary cause or status.
• Get answers for power outage questions
• Know what is going on with the power in your area and how to report it
• Find out when a particular outage started and find potential causes/status of the outage
• Keep up-to-date about current electrical outages
Impact on the Consumer: With PG&E’s map of outages, you can report an outage and sign up for updates on a specific situation. The service is updated every 15 minutes with any new information to keep customers informed of what’s happening in their area.