Interruption of utilities can have a significant impact on laboratory operations.
Utilities:
(1) electricity
(2) hot water
(3) cold water
(4) HVAC (heating or cooling)
(5) feed from central gas supply
(6) network access
Interruption of electricity can affect:
(1) refrigerators and freezers
(2) laboratory equipment (centrifuges, analyzers, etc)
(3) HEPA filtration in microbiology
(4) lighting
Recommendations:
(1) Identify the equipment and services that will be affected by outage of each utility.
(2) Having emergency electrical backup with key equipment on emergency circuits.
(3) Have an alarm on each piece of key equipment that alerts to an outage.
(4) Have recorders on key equipment that records conditions.
(5) Install line conditioners to prevent electrical surges.
(6) Have a protocol to shut down equipment if a key utility is interrupted.
(7) Have emergency lights installed.
(8) Provide visual indicators for loss of function (ventilation, power, etc).
