The principal challenge I have as an editor is making sure that what appears between these covers is both relevant and enticing to you, and the toughest part lies in broaching subjects that are painful for us to consider, much less to explore in any great depth. One such subject has to do with that painful question, Can my business survive a power outage?

Backup power is just one aspect of the distributed energy universe, and to some it might appear to be an extravagance that runs contrary to hard-nosed economic principles. But is it? The answer to that question is a rock-solid "Unhhh! well maybe." It depends on you, your business, just how often you can stand minor upsets in power delivery, and how long you're able to withstand a protracted loss of power. If you're a blacksmith whose customers arrive on horseback, then no, take another log off the pile and keep on whanging. Backup power is not your concern.

But is your business energy intensive? Or do one or two energy-intensive activities distinguish your basic operations and put positive numbers on your bottom line Š the proverbial distance between the lip and the cup? Sure, backup power can be likened to an ejection seat in a mach-two fighter. It might not seem to folks on the ground as a great investment in engineering effort, money, and space‹think what you could do with an extra 1,000 pounds of fuel instead of all that complicated equipment that adds nothing to the success of the mission‹unless, of course, you're the guy in the cockpit and you find yourself headed for terra firma at the speed of heat in what has become the performance equivalent of a lead safe.

The Nylon Descent

I never had to use the ejection seat, but I was sure happy it was there, and even though a normal landing with a sink rate of 5 feet per second was vastly superior to the chute's 15 feet per second, chances were that you could make it back to happy hour even if you limped a little on the way there. That's pretty much the same way we might look at backup power Š just what does it take to let us come through a power-out event and emerge perhaps a little battered, but still alive?

In the past few years, businesses have included backup power in their plans right from the start, either as capital or operating expense items. Given today's energy situation, that's changing. It's far harder to suture it in at a later date. Every time there's a power outage, those who have endured significant‹in some cases catastrophic‹losses, are joined by a whole lot more of us who think to ourselves, "Maybe now's the time to install a safety net." The trouble is that often when we finally do decide to address the situation, we find ourselves facing a tremendous list of questions containing such mind-benders as How much backup power is enough? What kind of system do we need? Is there some way I can get it to pay for itself?

Since most of us don't wish to devote the resources necessary to incorporate backup power equal to our total needs, we're more apt to seek answers on two levels: (1) What does it take to get to a point where we can stand down for a reasonable period of time and then return to normal when the grid comes back up? (2) Is there some intermediate capability that will allow us to operate at a reduced but sustainable level of activity? As a practical matter, we might ask ourselves, "Just what would it cost to lose power for X amount of time, and how would this affect future business?"

Most of us don't need to go too far out there to see how vulnerable we really are or that the cost of providing at least a minimum safety net may be well within the costs associated with even a short-term loss of power. The back of a matchbook should be enough to calculate the direct costs of a power loss, but do these represent the full consequences you face? That's what your innate business sense is for ... but you have to pose the challenge before it can come into play.

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DE - July/August 2004