Planned power outage? A guide to managing site security
Managing a warehouse or industrial manufacturing site means knowing that even a brief power outage can halt operations. And we know that power outages —whether planned or unexpected — are a headache for any operation reliant on constant electricity.
Energy companies understand the importance for industry to have electricity and make great attempts (for the most part) to avoid disruption. However, they do need to conduct maintenance and upgrades to the grid and we often find a number of our clients facing planned power outages.
What to expect when the lights go off
What happens to your critical systems during a power outage? Switching power off to a factory, warehouse or manufacturing facility takes some consideration - how will the plant equipment, servers, forklift chargers, production equipment and security system handle the power going off, and when the power switches back on, will it all start working again ready for operations to resume as normal?
We often get asked by our clients what they need to plan for with their security system when facing a planned power outage, and in this post we’ll breakdown all you need to know. Firstly, it’s important to understand that different types of security systems will react in very different ways without power.
Intruder alarms
Given the nature of an intruder alarm system, it’s critical that they continue to operate when the power is switched off - otherwise, it wouldn’t take a criminal mastermind to know to switch the power off before breaking in.
Every intruder alarm system has built in back-up batteries that will ensure the system continues to operate. And depending on the grading of your intruder alarm system, they will provide a constant source of power to the system from anywhere between 12 to 24 hours. However, that being said, if you’re not having your intruder alarm system regularly maintained and the batteries replaced every five years (a requirement under AS/NZS requirement) you may find they provide very little back-up at all.
So given that the intruder alarm is expected to continue to operate when there’s no power, you’d be mistaken for thinking that no action is required. In fact, alarms require the most attention, especially if you want to avoid key stakeholders being contacted over the weekend, or incurring costs for unnecessary security patrols.
You should always notify your alarm monitoring company of the planned power outage and request that the system is placed on test for the duration of the outage. Most monitoring stations and control rooms can schedule these test periods - check with them beforehand as this may save you from forgetting to call them on the day.
It’s good practice to check in with the monitoring station or your security provider after power is restored to ensure that the system is back online and reporting to the control room and that all batteries and power supply faults have restored.
Access control systems
Similar to intruder alarms, it’s important that an access control system continues to operate during a power outage, ensuring the smooth flow of staff in and out of your commercial or industrial facility.
However, access control systems often rely on other subsets of systems such as automatic gates, boom gates, auto-sliding doors and turnstiles, and these systems often have little or no back up. So whilst the card and PIN code readers may continue to function and flash, they may serve no purpose at all, for example, if the electronic sliding gate has lost power.
You should still be able to rely on doors with electro-magnetic locks, such as electronic strikes, magnetic locks or electronic mortise locks, but as with intruder alarm systems, if you’re not having them serviced and tested regularly, you may not be able to guarantee it.
Also, you should be aware that electronic locks typically operate in two different ways: fail-safe or fail-secure. In simple terms, fail-safe means that if they fail, such as during a loss of power, they will be ‘safe’ and the door will become unlocked, allowing people to pass through in an emergency. And if fail-secure, they will remain ‘secured’ and locked during a total loss of power.
It’s typical for internal or fire doors to operate in a fail-safe mode, and external perimeter doors, to operate in fail-secure mode. We recommend you gather and document this information from your security installer so you can plan accordingly. You don’t want to be caught off guard and discover that the entire facility becomes unsecured, creating a security risk, or that the doors remain locked, and no one, not even authorised staff and contractors, can gain access into the building.
Our advice would be to to ensure that keys and access to manual override switches are made available for a staff member on site during the power outage, allowing them to unlock doors should the access control system have completely failed.
Video surveillance systems
Typically, video surveillance systems should be treated similar to your IT infrastructure, as they rely on the same type of powered equipment to operate - such as servers and PoE network switches.
Unlike access control and intruder detections systems, there is often very little in the way of back-up for a video surveillance system. In our experience, at best you may find a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) providing power from anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour or two for the main recording server only. If you begin to hear a continuous beeping noise from the server or comms room as soon as the power switching off, it will likely be the UPS.
One important difference to note with video surveillance systems is that they contain spinning hard disk drives, and just like a PC or server, they should be properly shutdown before removing power to avoid damaging and corrupting these disks. Given that video surveillance systems are designed to operate 24/7, shutting them down may not be a simple process, or you may find that your system access privileges deny you access to this function. Check with your installer beforehand to get instructions on how to perform a system shutdown.
Once the power has restored, a video surveillance system should automatically power back-up again and continue to operate and record. We’d recommend you conduct some basic tests afterwards to ensure all cameras are back online and recording again - or at the very least, stick your head in the server room to ensure the beeping has stopped!
Checklist
Before the Lights Go Out
✅ Be prepared for a complete system failure, should back-up batteries fail
✅ Have a security plan in place to ensure the site remains secured as best as possible
✅ Notify the monitoring station of the planned power outage
✅ Ensure a staff member onsite has override keys for all your main access doors
✅ Perform a shutdown of the video surveillance recording server
After Power is Restored
✅ Check with the monitoring station to ensure all faults have restored
✅ Test access control doors to ensure they are secured and functioning
✅ Check video surveillance cameras are operating and recording
In summary, the occasional planned power outage is par of the course for most commercial, industrial and manufacturing facilities, but with a little planning, you can eliminate any unnecessary surprises - such as being locked out of the building, or the company CEO being receiving a wake up call from the control room!
If you’re in any doubt, give your security installer a call beforehand to get their advice. And if you don’t have a good security installer, give us a call on 1300 685 504.
