Energy security and resilience is seen as the biggest business risk, behind only cyber crime. However, attitudes and actions don’t always line up.
Companies know the business risks Well over one quarter (28%) of organizations rank energy security and resilience as a substantial risk to their business. Along with political uncertainty, it’s the biggest concern—ranking behind only cyber crime. It even ranks above financial risk and natural disasters.
Those concerns are understandable. Businesses are more dependent on energy than ever. And as they depend on powerreliant technology—from mission-critical hosted applications to electric vehicles—the pressure on supply is likely to increase. Outages could have a significant impact on financial performance and customer loyalty.
71% of organizations agree that the cost of being energy resilient is less than the cost of a power failure.
Many organizations have faced issues relating to energy resilience over the past 12 months. The biggest problem has been interruption to energy supply caused by external factors, such as grid failures due to high demand or extreme weather. Almost one third have also faced problems where internal factors, including equipment failure, have interrupted their supply.
Figure 5: Which of the following do you see as substantial risks to your organization?
These concerns about energy resilience, and the experience of power outages, aren’t always driving businesses to rethink their approach to energy. Many organizations aren’t regularly assessing the risks of interruption to their energy supply—only one quarter have done so in the last year.
The majority (88%) of companies have an energy resilience plan, but little more than half of them test it regularly and many don’t assess resilience at all locations.
Even when organizations carry out energy resilience assessments, they don’t always do so comprehensively. Assessments at one fifth of companies didn’t cover all locations.
Figure 6: To your knowledge, has your organization ever fully assessed the risk of interruption to its energy supply?
A leading wine and transportation service provider needed to maintain customers’ inventories in a climate controlled environment, 24/7. It decided to upgrade its portable backup power generator to a permanent installation. The operation was located near sensitive wetlands with noise restrictions, necessitating the use of a high-quality, fully sound-proof enclosure. Due to the urgency of the project, Centrica Business Solutions ensured delivery, setup and full commissioning of the generator within six months.
