Kathleen, Most emergency power generators typically don't service the entire building, just the critical systems, and those are the ones with the red plugs or otherwise hard-wired into the building grid. Even that might not suffice for your needs, a typical emergency power generator requires 6 or 7 seconds before it actually restores power. But as we all know, that kind of power interruption can disrupt hundreds of sensitive automated laboratory analyses that took hours to set up. As Arnold would say: Beeeg Problem (especially if you have insufficient samples for re-runs!). That's where the Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) comes in. It's basically a bank of several dozen continually-charging car batteries that will provide sufficient continuous AC power for 10 - 15 seconds to ultra-critical systems until the emergency power generator kicks in. And there are no moving parts. There are lots of different kinds out there. We happen to use the Eaton Powerware 9390 - actually two of them, set up side by side. One more thing about the UPS. Don't forget to report the lead and sulfuric acid on the annual Community Right To Know forms AND tell the local fire department about them and show them where they are! Eric Eric Clark, MS, CCHO, CHMM Safety & Compliance Officer Los Angeles County Public Health Laboratory >>> "Schmidt-Nebril, Kathleen"7/8/2010 5:34 PM >>> My university recently was hit with a four day power outage due to severe storms. Our science building is recently new and has a back up generator however none of the main lab instruments or equipment were backed up to it. Hoods, lights and ventilation were. In the end we are looking at a huge insurance claim and are now trying to prepare an action plan for each of our labs in the event we go through something like this again. I am the CHO for the department and was asked to put this together. Does anyone know what OSHA standard, if any, I should be looking at for this? They want to incorporate a "what to do" list for example if none of the scientists were around someone from maintenance could follow it to turn off sensitive equipment in our absence. My thought on that is would we need to train and document anyone who might have to respond and use our action list? Kathleen
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