Introduction
Electricity is vital to our everyday life. We assume that there will continuously be enough for us, but this is not always true. Every power plant has an upper limit to the amount of electricity it can generate. If the demand is greater than the supply, then the brownouts and blackouts occur. As our human population grows the demand for electricity also increases.
The effects of rotating brownout will be very severe to our modern way of life. Our human civilization has only existed with the help of electricity for a very small slice of its overall timeline. It, and other factors, has enabled enormous population growth on the planet to the point where if it were not for electricity, a large percentage of us would cease to exist.
Hence, there are various painful effects of long term power outage that can be felt for a long time, even after the power comes back on. When in or around cities, there are special consequences during power outages. Most urban and suburban locations are very highly dependent on uninterrupted electricity.
As we heard in the news, Mindanao, especially in Zamboanga City is continually suffering from six to nine hours of daily brownouts as a result of the massive power failure that struck Mindanao last Feb. 27. At 3:53 a.m. that day, the entire island was blanketed in darkness for still unclear reason. The business community in this city is now losing millions of pesos in sales and income due to the daily brownouts imposed since last Thursday by the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco). (http://www.newsflash.org/2004/02/hl/hl112831.htm)
Many companies are unprepared for business disruptions caused by power blackouts, and are often unaware of the true costs and impact that they can have on their operations.
While the majority of power failures from national grids last only a few hours, some blackouts can last days or even weeks, completely shutting down production at companies and critical infrastructures such as...