In FMJ's regular monthly column, our team of FM experts answer your
questions about the world of facilities management
THE BUILDING SERVICES ENGINEER
INSTITUTE’S VIEW
DAVID STEVENS, VICE CHAIR OF CIBSE FM SPECIAL
INTEREST GROUP
The UK’s national grid
is at greater risk of
brown and blackouts
due in part to a
reliance on renewable
sources such as wind
and solar, which have
less consistency than
traditional energy
sources and therefore
a potential instability
in their supply to
the grid. Whilst the
National Grid states
that such occurrences are incredibly rare, local
power failures, fluctuations and brownouts are
relatively common and an increased risk from
cyber-attacks and terrorist attacks is not
impossible to imagine.
Hopefully organisations will plan ahead to
prevent the damaging implications of power
loss or brown outs. The facilities manager
must lead this strategy and process, and
where in-house expertise does not exist, then
outsourcing critical support and maintenance
is perfectly acceptable - however the FM should
be setting the direction that supports the business
continuity plan and ensuring that there is su icient
budget for the required level of resilience and maintenance
that supports the organisation's objectives.
20 OCTOBER 2019
Getting maintenance and
the associated infrastructure
reliability right is about
supporting the core business
and ensuring adequate system
resilience for essential equipment
that the organisation needs to
survive.
There will be a balance between
what services are to be supported during
a power loss, what is essential for trading
or reputation protection, and what can be
sacrificed - the infrastructure and costs required for
full electrical load support is generally prohibitive for even the
largest of organisations.
FMs very much need to consider what it is that their
organisations can do without, potentially for long periods of
time - and where can services be transferred or outsourced
away from the a ected building. Agile workplaces and those
with cloud-based so ware and file storage are best suited for
this location transfer.
A general lack of preparedness by businesses, especially
SMEs, can result in loss of trading ability that has devastating
impacts on the business. Buildings - like the organisations they
host - are unique and o en have vulnerabilities with legacy
systems, each responding di erently to power loss; requiring
a tailored maintenance strategy and back up provision to
ensure the systems integrity, when called upon in emergency
circumstances. The functionality, reliability and availability
of these critical assets need to be maintained and capability
stress tested on a regular basis.
Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPS), generators, batteries
and non-essential load shedding all form part of a resilience
system that needs specific tailoring to the unique
systems of a building. It’s worth noting that a
UPS system won’t keep the lights on, but
will support the critical systems until
the generators are running and able to
take the critical load. It’s important
to consider that a er a power out,
the recovery stage is also o en
problematic, initially due to a possible
inrush of electricity supplies, as the
organisation tries to re-establish
its systems and operations to full
functionality and recover its lost business.
There is a wide range of guidance
documents for FMs to upskill in this area, the
most useful and reader friendly is the CIBSE Guide
M – Maintenance Engineering and Management Guide,
with sections on operational risk assessment & management
FM CLINIC
The power cuts in
August which a ected
thousands of homes and
businesses throughout
the country drew
attention to the fact that
power outages and less
serious but still disruptive
blackouts can lead to serious
issues, particularly regarding
computer systems. What lessons can
be drawn to ensure that a cut or reduction
in power does not have a critical impact
on an organisation?
David Stevens
ADVICE & OPINION
Hopefully organisations
will plan ahead to prevent the
damaging implications of power
loss or brown outs. The FM
must lead this strategy
and process...”
– David Stevens