Emergency plan for your business

Prepare your business for power failures

Know your building

• Find the room(s) where the electricity meters and service boxes (breaker panels) are located.
  • Ensure that you have access to that room.
  • If you have more than one panel or meter, identify which equipment, devices and areas of the building each one powers.
• Verify that each of these rooms has an emergency lighting system or a flashlight with new batteries.
• Inventory the fuses used in your building, including their amperages. Keep sufficient replacement fuses in appropriate amperages on hand so that you can replace any fuses that blow when power is restored.

Know your equipment

• Post the building's single-line diagram in rooms with meters.
• Develop and implement a maintenance plan for the electrical system.
• Make a list of all equipment, indicating:
  • whether it can or cannot be turned off, and
  • whether it must be reset after a power outage.
• If required, establish a controlled shutdown plan for your equipment.
• Understand (and, ideally, document) how your various systems work (telephone, monitoring, alarm and security, fire detection, etc.) during and after a power outage.

Be prepared

• Document the tasks, roles and responsibilities you want to assign to your staff during a power outage. You should have a plan to shut down and restart your electrical equipment and devices.
• Ensure that you have, either on-site or on call, people who are qualified to work on your electrical equipment.
• Designate personnel responsible for handling emergencies outside regular work hours, and establish a protocol for communicating alerts and information.
• Protect sensitive electronic equipment with surge suppressors.
• Make a list of emergency telephone numbers.
  • Include your electrician, elevator and computer service suppliers, managers and Hydro-Québec's number (1 800 790-2424) for reporting an outage.
  • Post the list in the meter rooms and all other easily accessible locations in case of an outage.
• Create a safety committee. Designate safety coordinators responsible for contacting the employees in each part of your company.
• Always have a working cell phone or wired phone. Cordless phones do not work during power outages.
• Ensure that all key employees have a cell phone and an emergency telephone list.
• Have a qualified electrician check that the switches on your electrical installation are in good operating condition even under heavy use.
• Put together an emergency kit for power outages and ensure that it is properly maintained. It could include a flashlight, radio (battery-operated or wind-up), spare batteries and a copy of your emergency plan and emergency telephone number list.

Prepare your employees

• Provide your employees with training or information on what to do in a power outage, for example, when to use the elevator and procedures for shutting down alarm, ventilation and air-conditioning systems and any other critical or sensitive equipment.
• Make sure your key employees know how to report a power outage and have the service address or distribution system location code.
• If you have employees who use medical devices, ensure that they have a backup power source or transportation available to a site with power.
• Equip each area of your business premises with at least one flashlight – avoid candles.
• Ensure that appropriate safety equipment is always easily accessible so that employees who have to turn switches back on can do so safely.

Test backup systems

• If you have a generator, write down the make and model and the nameplate capacity and voltage.
• Ensure that someone on-site or on-call is trained to operate the generator according to manufacturer specifications and the safety code.
• Verify that all critical equipment and systems (including emergency lighting) are connected to the generator and that it has sufficient capacity for the entire load.
• Institute a regular maintenance program for your generator.
  • Test the operation of the generator once monthly.
  • Ensure that the generator operates properly once all equipment and systems are connected.
  • Also check that the load transfer switch operates properly.
  • Remove anything that could represent a safety hazard around the generator.
• Know how much fuel you have and how long the generator can run on it.
  • Plan a fuel delivery procedure.
  • Renew your fuel reserve (by replacing or using it) every year.
• Test your systems (uninterruptible power supply (UPS), emergency lighting, telephone, security/alarm, fire, etc.) annually.
• If you have a UPS, make sure you know how much battery backup time it provides.
  • Recalculate the backup time each time you add or remove equipment.
  • Create a procedure to do a controlled equipment shutdown before the battery backup runs out.

If the power goes out

What to do

• Check your circuit breakers and fuses to ensure that the outage is not caused by a problem with your installation. Check whether neighboring buildings have power.
• Make sure your employees are safe. Check the elevators, equipment and premises in general for any situation that requires immediate action.
• If the outage is caused by your installation, contact your electrician (In French only).
• If the outage is on the Hydro-Québec system, call 1 800 790-2424 or the special emergency number provided by your Hydro-Québec account executive for reporting outages.
• If the outage has already been reported, the automated system will tell you when service is expected to return.
• If the time to restore power is unknown, or if you are the first person to notify us, an agent will take down all the relevant information.
• Listen to your battery-powered or windup radio to find out when service is expected to return.
• If you use a generator, ensure that the load transfer switch has properly isolated it so that the power it produces does not enter the Hydro-Québec distribution system. The consequences could be extremely serious for people working on the system to restore power.
• Turn off devices and equipment that are not connected to the generator. This will prevent them from restarting when power is restored and causing damage, injury or a fire.
• Open the breakers (or remove the fuses) on your most important equipment and devices to prevent damage from an overvoltage when power is restored.
• Leave only a few lights on so that you know when power has been restored. Remember to leave their breakers on.
• If necessary, contact the suppliers of your various systems, including air-conditioning, heating, security/alarm and communications.

When power returns

8 important steps

1. To avoid overloading the distribution system, gradually restart your equipment and devices at 10 to 15 minute intervals, keeping the most sensitive for last.
2. One at a time, close the breakers that you had opened, or put the fuses back in.
   • Start with the least critical of your single-phase circuits.
   • Wait a few minutes for equipment to restart before moving on to the next breaker.
   • Restore three-phase circuits and equipment last.
3. Reset and restart your clocks, timers and alarms.
4. Following the manufacturer's instructions, shut down your generator and transfer the load to the standard electrical system.
5. Check and refill your fuel supply.
6. Review your power outages plan based on lessons learned from the outage.
7. If necessary, review existing procedures with your safety committee.
8. Inform employees about what happened and how it was handled.