Generating Emergency Power for Local Municipalities

Providing essential services to citizens at the state level can be challenging. The government knows this better than most. Hence, each state is typically subdivided into counties, cities, and towns. In each of these structural units, the local municipality is mandated to provide the essential services to ensure citizens live comfortably and businesses have a friendly environment to thrive.

 Essentially, modern society expects everything to move smoothly with minimal interruptions. They want clean water running on-demand in their kitchen and bathroom, continuous utility, seamless access to public facilities, services, and health. While this is easier on paper than in practice, local municipalities without any emergency power plan make it even harder to deliver critical services. Electric power is at the core of everything that the city or the town authority is expected to provide. Whether it's waste management or public transportation, a reliable source of emergency power is vital. 

Typically, municipal functions that require emergency power include:

• Public facilities such as town halls, police stations, courthouses, fire response stations, libraries, schools, and other important buildings.
• Water treatment and distribution plants to make sure clean water is available to residents.
• Sanitation services including, waste removal, treatment, and disposal.
• Local utilities, including natural gas supply and power generation.
• Public transportation such as subway trains, street lights.
• Health facilities such as hospitals, clinics, emergency care, e.t.c.
• Emergency response services and command centers, e.g., public communication channels, rescue teams.
• Emergency temporary shelters during natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, or storms.

The Rising Need of Emergency Power for Local Municipalities

While it's hard to prevent power outages caused by natural disasters, sometimes the cause is humans. This can range from, for example, failure caused by poorly-maintained power generation and supply equipment to accidents such as the collapse of buildings under construction due to human error. All the same, preparing for such a situation is what's more vital. And there is nothing better than installing a backup power supply.

However, when the local government is planning for emergency power, they have several options. While solar power and battery storage are one of them, it's usually expensive and limited. If a disaster strikes during winter, it means very minimal solar-generated electricity. At the same time, batteries have limitations since they can only provide energy up to their maximum rate. Nonetheless, generators can be more reliable because they're least affected by any of those factors. Furthermore, with a portable generator, you can generate electricity right from where it's needed, especially during disaster recovery operations. The local government can consider the following genset classes when implementing a backup power system.

Diesel Generators

These are highly fuel-efficient and can serve in a range of case scenarios experienced in cities and towns. The Diesel genset has reliable performance and low maintenance. You can easily purchase a new or used diesel unit depending on the application and budget.

Natural Gas Genset

Generators operating using natural gas can be ideal for backup power for public buildings and facilities during a grid outage. E.g., in hospitals, police stations, or courtrooms. Gas units are emission compliant, whether in indoor or outdoor applications.

Portable generators

Mobile generators help local municipalities' emergency response teams to reliably power rescue stations and temporary evacuation sites during disasters. Portable units are available either in diesel, gas, or hybrid types.

We Can Help

Power System Services has partnered with different municipalities to ensure that they're better equipped for any future utility outage. We adequately inspect and test all our generators before we sell or deliver them to be sure they can provide emergency power in all possible use cases. Why worry again about something you've got an answer for? Give us a call today at 855-707-0918 to inquire or learn more about power preparedness.

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