Editorial

Power failures seem to be reported in the news on a daily basis. These range from national network failures that black-out entire countries to localised events which nevertheless have devastating impacts. The threat of network terrorism is further increasing the level of nervousness amongst facilities managers.

The recent events at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (BBC News, 2003) in Scotland illustrate what happens when complete power failure occurs. The power failure left the hospital without electricity for an hour. Stand-by generators broke down and only the reserve batteries maintained supplies to critical parts of the hospital like intensive care after the main power supply was lost. Staff and patients in the hospital were reportedly locked in wards because electric doors would not open. Staff also had to use handheld breathing apparatus on some patients because the power failure had rendered machines useless. The failure had been initially blamed on a National Grid failure but Scottish Power later revealed there had been no interruption in the public supply to the infirmary. It is now thought that a fault in the hospital's own "fail-safe" system triggered the problems.

In August 2003 large swathes of North America were hit by a black-out affecting 50 million people. In September 2003 the Danish capital, Copenhagen,and parts of Sweden were hit by massive power cuts. Around four million homes and businesses lost supplies. In the same month Italy was hit by a massive power cut – leaving many parts without electricity hours after the unprecedented black-out. In August 2003 the London underground experienced a major power failure. London Fire Brigade took 400 calls and say they rescued about 100 people who were stuck in lifts.

What is evident from all of these events is that facilities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to perturbations in national grids that spread unexpectedly and with devastating effects. For the facilities manager this places greater pressures to provide robust contingencies. What would be the effect of prolonged power outages on your organisation? Many people are currently reviewing measures after asking exactly this question.

Edward Finch

ReferenceBBC News (2003),"Action call over ERI power cut", 5 September.