Big freeze - Interxion warns businesses to test their resilience
The National Grid's ability to cope with the forecasted 'big freeze' is in doubt, following a report in autumn 2003* revealing the safety margin for generating capacity over and above peak demand could disappear during prolonged periods of cold weather. Whilst the National Grid's ability to keep the lights burning is being tested, businesses need to ensure that they not only have a resilience strategy in place, but it is tested against its ability to cope with the possibility of a blackout.
"In the same way we prepare our cars for extreme weather conditions by stocking up on anti-freeze, businesses need to ensure their resilience strategies are up to scratch," said Anthony Foy, group MD of Interxion. "For example, there is no point in having an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) if it is not tested regularly - it is no good finding out that the UPS does not work as the lights go out."
"The DTI's decision to keep the findings of its investigation into the August blackouts close to its chest ultimately leaves businesses in the dark as to whether the National Grid can cope with the big freeze," continued Foy. "Implementing business continuity technologies and procedures are crucial to ensuring firms can cope with loss of power and whilst UPS deals with the immediate blackout, this is simply not resilient enough in today's environment."
Interxion advises that onsite oil generators will help with prolonged periods of power loss. In addition, businesses should mirror their IT systems at other secure premises to ensure they can keep operating under any conditions.
Interxion's data centres are backed up by diesel generators containing 15,000 litres of diesel fuel each - each generator can power over 900 households for 24 hours. If the grid fails, large-scale batteries cover the immediate loss of power. Interxion has 12 sets of 64 batteries at each site, weighing up to almost 20 tonnes.
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