Potential labor dollars lost at each facility over a 10 -year period just from site power utility outages

The power utility companies deliver power to every customer across the United States an average of 99.5% of the time over a 10-year period. Of course, this percentage is with the use of only the required outage reporting to each state Public Utility Commission. Each state has its own requirements for a power outage. All outages for every customer are not required to be reported. This average uptime percentage covers the entire day of every year. Not just from 8 AM to 5 PM each day.

Naturally, if your company is not doing productive work during the actual period of the outage your facility may or may not lose money by a complete power outage from the power utility. The tables below place a potential dollar value for time lost just from power utility failures.

The tables do not take into consideration of any equipment failures or downtime that was caused by the power surges and sags when the power goes down and then comes back online. The tables also do not take into consideration of equipment failures or downtime from lightning strikes, power surges, electromagnetic interference, radio frequency interference, everyday power fluctuations, unexplained power disturbances or unexpected electrical equipment failures.

Many companies may choose to ignore these tables because an average is just that an average. 50% of power utility customers will have downtime percentages that are more than the tables average and 50% of power utility customers will have downtime percentages that are less than the tables average.

What the tables tell us is that during some ten-year period your facility will lose utility power 0.05% of the time.

What the tables do not tell us is what other power quality issues are causing downtime and lots of money. The tables also do not tell us that the power utilities are only responsible for 20%-25% of all electrical problems that occur in a facility. The other 75%-80% of electrical problems in a facility are caused from lightning strikes at or nearby the facility as well are power surges, electromagnetic interference, radio frequency interference, everyday power fluctuations, unexplained power disturbances, and wiring within the facility.

During this same 10-year average percentage downtime from the power utility each facility has the potential to lose 3-4 times that percentage downtime from electrical issues within the facility itself.

The tables do tell us that when a customer has downtime over 0.5% of the time can be very costly.

Facility managers may or may not be able to invest in methods to reduce labor cost from an unplanned power outage from the power utility. However; a facility manager should not continue to permit unknown electrical issues within the facility to potentially cause a minimum of 1.5%-2% downtime each year. Facility managers should take a proactive approach to holistic facility electrical protection and eliminate as much as possible unwanted equipment failures and downtime from power quality issues within the facility. Even using Table 1 a small company has the potential of losing a potential of $8.76 to $17,500.00 each year. The potential cost savings from downtime is worth the investment.

Here are a few examples of downtime percentages and the hours a year it totals:

• 0.001% equals 0.0876 hours a year downtime
• 0.01% equals 0.876 hours a year downtime
• 0.1% equals 8.76 hours a year downtime
• 0.5% equals 43.8 hours a year downtime.
• 1.0% equals 87.6 hours a year downtime.
• 1.5% equals 131.4 hours a year downtime.
• 2.0% equals 175.2 hours a year downtime.
• 5.0% equals 438 hours a year downtime.

Table 1 is for companies usually less than 5 people

Table 2 is for companies usually less than 25 people

 Table 3 is for companies usually less than 50 people

 For larger companies it is very easy to create your own table with your own percentages and cost.

Downtime is very costly but if you never track and calculate your facility it will always be an unknown number. If a proactive plan is not developed and implemented outages will continue to pop up on its time line not yours.