Small businesses urged to seek alternative power supply to cut losses
Mr Edouard Heripret, the Schneider Electric general manager East Africa. Courtesy photo
What you need to know:
- A UPS system, according to Mr Heripret, allows customers to leverage on data-driven insights as well as helping users to monitor the health and status of their devices to simplify maintenance and optimise performance.
Small and medium enterprises must enhance measures through which they can ensure 24/7 power supply if they are to reduce losses, according to the general manager of Schneider Electric, a company involved in digital transformation of energy management and automation.
Speaking during a customer engagement meeting in Kampala early this week, Mr Edouard Heripret, the Schneider Electric general manager East Africa, said there is need to fill the growing market need for power protection solutions that ensure power availability, reliability and manageable supply.
A number of small businesses still suffer intermittent power supply, which, Mr Heripret said must be mitigated through building reliable alternatives and backups that can shield, especially businesses from losses.
According to a Power Africa Fact Sheet, Uganda has one of the lowest electrification rates in Africa but the country has developed alternative policies that have allowed private players to build different innovations that have mitigated supply shortages.
During the engagement, Mr Heripret said Schneider Electric, which is actively involved in energy automation, had built a number of innovations such as the three-phase Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) that are ideal for consistent supply of power for small business.
The innovations, he said, offers 60 kVA and 100 kVA capacity units that can service small and medium businesses, especially data centres and manufacturing facilities, among others, for several hours Only 10 per cent of the population in Uganda have access to electricity in urban centres compared to less than 5 per cent in rural areas.
This calls for reliable alternatives to supply power with the view of mitigating a number of issues, key among deforestation as people seek cooking aides and the spread of diseases spread through consumption of fumes.
Driven insights
A UPS system, according to Mr Heripret, allows customers to leverage on data-driven insights as well as helping users to monitor the health and status of their devices to simplify maintenance and optimise performance.
