What sort of backup power do I need?

The backup power you require depends on a number of factors and will be unique to your circumstances. When considering your needs you should think about the following:

Critical loads

What equipment or part of your estate is it that directly affects your ability to maintain key operations and that must be kept running during a mains power supply failure, for example a data centre’s servers or life support equipment in a hospital.

Essential loads

What is it that provides secondary support services that even though they aren’t operationally critical, may still be required for health and safety reasons, such as emergency lighting. These loads must still have some form of backup but do not require uninterrupted power, so can be allowed to fail or ride through the time it takes for a generator to start.

Non-essential loads

Finally, there is the equipment and parts of your organisation that you can afford to lose when the mains power supply fails, for example printers, general lighting and desk fans.