How to Protect Yourself Against Potential Energy Blackouts This Winter
UK Plans for Energy Blackouts in January 2023
Did you know that the UK is preparing for crisis-response power cuts this winter? There are emergency plans being put in place by the government that could mean organised energy blackouts for businesses and households over several days in January 2023.
There haven’t been organised blackouts since the early 1970s when a 3-day work week was introduced to conserve energy supplies that were impacted by coal miners’ and rail workers’ strikes affected supply.
Why might energy blackouts happen?
Millions of UK homes and families could be hit with the emergency measure in January if a perfect storm of unusually cold weather, gas shortages and huge demand puts too much strain on energy networks and leaves the UK with a dangerously short of power. In a nutshell, organised power cuts would conserve electricity, ensuring sufficient supplies were available for essential uses and critical services.
What is driving the potential energy shortfall?
There are several factors contributing to the potential energy shortfall this winter and together could create a perfect storm:
- High global demand.
- Low national output from wind and solar energy sources.
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war has sent gas prices soaring and sparked concerns over shortages of power across Europe this winter. Russia is Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas and Putin has sought to punish support for Ukraine by reducing supply to many European countries. While the UK has little dependence directly on Russian imports, supplies from countries such as Norway and France are critical to the UK and the knock on effect of any European shortages would hit the UK significantly.
What can you do to protect yourself against energy blackouts?
While none of us can prevent energy blackouts if they happen, there are steps that you can take to mitigate the impact on your home or business. An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) – also known as a battery backup – provides backup power when your regular power source fails or drops to an unacceptable level. In a home or business context and depending on the capacity of the device, a UPS will allow either for the orderly shut down of electronic devices such as computers and/or will allow you to continue connecting to the internet for a period of time. This would mean that you can continue to connect to the internet and make VoIP calls, for essential work purposes, or to keep watching You Tube, shopping online or whatever your ‘essential’ tasks might be!
Our 2 key recommendations to protect yourself against the impact of energy blackouts are:
- Switch to VoIP from traditional copper phone line connection. Read more about how VoIP works and the services we provide, here.
- Invest in an affordable UPS solution as a source of back-up power.
UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) devices to keep you online this winter
If you need help sourcing a UPS we can help! Just call us on 0800 999 1519 or email [email protected] and a member of the team will be happy to help.
We will soon have a robust and affordable customer-side device offer complete with install, for a one-off cost. Stay tuned on our social media channels for announcements and more information in the coming weeks!
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