Blog posts tagged with 'automatic transfer switch'

Do you remember the summer, when the days were non-stop sunshine, and it didn’t rain? It suddenly seems like a very distant memory, doesn’t it? Here we are, in the depths of winter, although as yet it hasn’t got really cold in some parts of the country. However, in the last few days, some places in Scotland have been around minus 15C. That’s no fun whatsoever if it happens that you also have a power cut.

Unfortunately, the possibility of power cuts is also on the cards. What with the shortage of gas and the horrendous increase in the cost of electricity, those bills are going to get ever bigger. If you think that is only temporary and the price may come down, think of this: when was the last time you saw prices of anything going down? Never mind electricity. Once they go up, they stay up.

This is why more and more people are thinking of investing in their own generator as the best emergency power source in the UK. And not just as an emergency power source, but as an alternative. Let’s face it: it is going to be a lot cheaper to run your own generator rather than pay inflated electricity bills. So rather than using a generator as the best emergency power source in the UK, a lot of people are considering saying goodbye to those bills by using one all the time. And why not?

Similar To Using Your Own Car

It is similar to having your own transport. Rather than using the trains (if you are lucky enough to find one running!), it is cheaper and far more convenient to drive your own car. And once you have your own car, you don’t need trains or buses. Goodbye, Mr Lynch.

If you invest in a generator, you will need a transfer switch. You have a choice of a manual or automatic transfer switch, but although a bit more expensive, an automatic switch is the way to go. If you have a manual one, you have to go out into the garden and fire up the generator yourself (no fun if it’s pouring with rain) before you can manually switch over to the generator from the mains.

An automatic transfer switch does it all for you. Fires up the generator as soon as the power goes down, and then when it’s up and running switches over to it. The lights will be back on in seconds – and you won’t spoil your dinner cooking in the oven. 

Open any newspaper over the last few weeks and you will have seen dark threats about the possibility of power outage in the coming winter. What with the war in Ukraine and other factors, undersea gas pipes being cut by – well, your guess is as good as anyone’s.

But it all adds up to the fact that if we have a cold winter – and most winters get cold, and we need to turn the heating on – there could well be a shortage of electricity resulting in power cuts. 

What’s the perfect answer? Generate your own electricity! If you do that, you won’t have to worry when the power goes down because you will still have all the electricity that you need for your home. Your lights will stay on, you will be able to cook, and you can have as much heat as you wish. Oh - and you will be able to power up your laptop and mobile which are essential pieces of technology today. Where would we be without them?

Obviously, you will need to install a generator in your home, but it is by no means as costly as you might think. At Blades Power Generation, we have used generators for sale in the UK.

You might ask why you should find used generators for sale in the UK. Why wouldn’t you buy a new one? 

The Same As Buying A Used Car

The answer is very simple. It is exactly the same as buying a used car in the UK, which many, many people do. It saves a lot of money! OK, you don’t have the latest swanky, luxury leather seats and so on when you buy a used car, but when it comes to a generator, you are going to put it outside in the garden where you may hardly ever see it. For many families it makes total sense.

You will need a transfer switch so that you can switch to the generator when the power goes down, and you have the choice of an automatic transfer switch or a manual one. An automatic transfer switch does cost more than a manual one, but it has one great benefit. When the power goes out, your generator will fire up automatically and the lights will come back on in seconds, your TV will be on, and your dinner will be cooking in the oven. It makes sense, doesn’t it? 

Good question. But a lot of people are thinking along those lines today because of climate change and the race to get to carbon neutral.

Just remember this. In 2030 there are going to be no new petrol or diesel driven cars in the UK. They have to be all electric after that. Sure, you can still use your “old” petrol or diesel vehicle or a hybrid.

But 2030 is only just over 7 years away! This means that, other things aside, there is going to be a huge surge in the demand for electricity in order to power the all-electric vehicles as well as the hybrids. Either that, or it’s back on your bike!

Owing to several political reasons, nowadays there is much less gas coming to produce electricity. So, it may be the right time to look for new generators for sale in the UK, such as the ones we supply at Blades Power Generation. This will keep you going when the power goes down.

If you search for new generators for sale in the UK, you need to ensure that you get one that is the right size for your home. They have different outputs, so you need one which will produce sufficient power for your needs.

You will also need a transfer switch because this is a legal requirement. There are two types – a manual switch or an automatic transfer switch. This is necessary so that you cannot have mains power and generator power at the same time because that can cause serious problems. If the generator is running and the mains comes back on, it can burn out your generator. Not good. Equally, the generator can push power back down the mains which can cause injury to workers.

If you have a manual transfer switch, it means that when the power goes down you have to start the generator and then switch over to it once it is up and running. That’s OK if you happen to be at home at the time.

However, an automatic transfer switch does it all for you. When the power goes down it sends a signal to the generator and starts it up. Once it’s running, it automatically switches over.

Equally, it works the other way around too, so when the mains power comes back on it will switch off the generator and transfer you back to the mains. So much easier than doing it manually.

You can hardly open a paper or switch on the TV news these days without seeing all the doom and gloom. What is, in one respect, fascinating about the cost of electricity and heating this coming winter is the fact that it seems to go up by a few hundred pounds every day. Only a couple of weeks ago the energy price cap was going to be £3,200 or so. Then it went to £3,500. Then £4,250. And then at the weekend, it was quoted somewhere as £5,500!

No matter which set of figures you believe, one thing is for sure, and that is that energy bills are going to skyrocket over the next few months. This is why more and more homeowners are considering buying a generator because there are two main advantages. First, you have a standby power unit if the electricity goes down – which does seem as though it is becoming more likely. Second, it may well now be a very considerable amount cheaper to generate your own electricity rather than use the usual supplier.

Of course, you do have to take into account the cost of buying a generator in the first place, and to a large extent that will be decided by the amount of power that you need to produce for your home or business. That is a subject for another day.

You Don’t Necessarily Need A New Generator

However, you don’t necessarily need to buy a new generator because you can find used generators for sale in the UK. It is very similar to buying a used car. Very often businesses that use generators will need to upgrade and get a larger one as they expand, and so they trade in the old one. As one of the foremost generator suppliers in the UK, at Blades Power Generation, we always have a stock of used generators for sale in the UK that customers have traded in with us.

You will also need a changeover switch for when the power goes down, and you can get a manual one or an automatic changeover switch. If you have a manual switch, it means that when the power goes down you have to fire up your generator and then switch over to it.

An automatic changeover switch does this, well, er, automatically! So, when the power goes down it will fire up your generator and – boom! – the lights are back on in a matter of seconds.

When it comes to the electricity that we use today, things have changed quite a bit in just the last few months. What with the war in Ukraine and the cost of electricity going through the roof, more people are certainly considering their options.

It used to be that a generator for the home was merely used for those occasions when the power goes down. This was not all that likely to happen in our big cities, but today, who knows? Not only that, but we may be coming to the point where electricity is so expensive that it is actually cheaper to produce your own using a generator! Something nobody would have even considered only a year ago.

If you are seriously considering buying a home generator, you need to make certain that you have one that is big enough to produce the power that you need. You can either work this out yourself, or better still have a qualified electrician do the calculations for you because you need to be certain that you are covered and add a little on top as a safety precaution.

The bigger the generator you need, the more it will cost, but there is also some good news and that is that you can buy used generators in the UK. This is much the same as buying a second-hand car. It still works, but it may not look as “flash” as a brand new one. In fact, if you are considering the option to buy used generators in the UK, at Blades Power Generation we always have some in stock. This is because some firms who use generators expand their businesses, and so need a bigger generator and then they will trade in their old one with us.

You will also need a changeover switch to start the generator when the power goes down. You can buy a manual transfer switch, but an automatic transfer switch, although more expensive, is always the preferred option.

This is because an automatic transfer switch does what it says on the tin. When the power goes down, it will automatically fire up your generator and then transfer over to it. This means that you will only be without power for a matter of seconds.

If you have a manual transfer switch, you have to be on the premises and do it manually. If you happen to be on holiday and the power goes down for four or five days, you will come home to a freezer full of unfrozen food. Not ideal!

In another very recent article, we wrote that now is the perfect time to get yourself a standby generator for your home because of the serious threats of more and more power outages in the not-too-distant future.

However, while we mentioned climate change and the loss of Russian gas causing issues with power generation, and power outages as a result of more frequent and worse storms, there is another thing that is about to happen any day now, and that is rail strikes caused as a result of decisions taken largely by the RMT Union.

This union has announced rail strikes on June 21^st, 23^rd, and 25^th across the whole of Britain with some 50,000 employees going on strike. (This is despite the fact that the average rail worker has an income of £46,000 compared with £37,000 for teachers and £32,000 for nursing staff). The result will be that because of varying shifts, there will be virtually no trains for a week, and in turn that will affect delivery to power stations, leading to further disruption and more power outages. Not only that, but the union has stated that if the employers do not accede to their wishes, this will go on all summer!

Just another very good reason why you need to consider buying a standby generator for your home or business right away!

Look No Further

If you are looking for new generators for sale in the UK, then look no further than Blades Power Generation. We have a huge range of different new generators for sale in the UK, from very small ones to those that can power a large business when the electricity goes down. Look at it this way: things regarding electric power are only going to get worse, not just in the short term but for the long term.

When you install a standby generator, you need to be aware of certain legal requirements. Chief of these is that you must install a transfer switch.

This can be an automatic transfer switch or a manual one. When you have a manual transfer switch, as the name suggests, you have to start your generator by hand when the power goes down and then switch over from the mains once it is up and running.

On the other hand, an automatic transfer switch does the job for you. It detects when the power has gone down, fires up your generator, and then when it is running at full power, automatically switches from mains to generator. The result is that you will only be without power for a matter of seconds before the lights come on again.

More and more people today are investing in a standby generator for their homes because of the possibility of greater numbers of power outages. There is a definite increase in violent storms, the like of which we have not seen since October 15^th 1987, and these can bring down power lines and cause blackouts.

Buying and installing a standby generator for your home or business will give you the peace of mind that you know you will still have power if or when the worst happens.

To some extent, a standby generator is a matter of choice. For some people, even one blackout is enough to warrant a purchase, but if you live in an area with frequent (more than three a year) or long blackouts, then it becomes something of a necessity.

Generators come in different sizes, depending upon the mount of power that you need. This is not just related to the size of your home, but more to the complexity, or otherwise, of your electrical system, especially if you have air conditioning. You will need an electrician to calculate the size of generator that you need.

Manual or Automatic Changeover Switches?

You also need to decide whether to install a manual changeover switch or buy an automatic transfer switch in the UK. If you have a manual changeover switch, it means that when the power goes down you will have to manually start the generator and then switch over when it is up and running. That’s OK if you are at home or on your business premises when the power goes down, but it means that if you are not at home then there will be no electricity. In turn, that means that your fridge and freezer won’t be running, along with anything else such as a water heater or the heater that keeps the tank of your pet gecko at the right temperature.

If you buy an automatic transfer switch in the UK, then that will detect the power outage, fire up the generator and then automatically switch over, so your home is only without power for a matter of seconds.

One of the biggest arguments for buying a standby generator is that you will always have electricity, no matter what. So, any issues with the electricity supply will not affect you.

This is becoming more and more important in this day and age, particularly with climate change. As we have seen very recently, there have been some very large and powerful storms that have affected homes and businesses in the North-West and Scotland, and it seems that these could become more commonplace. Some homes have been without electricity for as long as two weeks.

When you have a generator as a backup to your business, you can forget about time and productivity losses, because your generator can kick in and take over while the power is down. And there can be more to it than time and productivity losses, because when there is a sudden power outage it can cause serious damage to devices and machinery when the power comes back on if there is a power surge, yet this can be avoided if there is a power backup.

You can also cut down on your electricity consumption in a business by using a generator as a backup during peak hours. Some studies have shown that you can save as much as 40% during this time slot.

A Range Of Sizes

Backup generators come in a range of different sizes, and in order to establish what you need, whether for your home or business, you will need a qualified electrician to calculate the amount of power required. The cost of a 1kW generator is only around £300: a 7kW one would be about £2,000, a 15kW one £6,000, and so on. To this, you need to add the cost of installation which can be around another £1,000.

Now we said that you will always have electricity, and this may, or may not, be true. It depends upon the type of transfer switch that you install. You can have a manual transfer switch or an automatic transfer switch.

As you might guess, if you have a manual transfer switch you have to switch over to the generator manually. That means that if you are not on the premises when the power goes down you won’t have electricity, so if you happen to be away on holiday for three or four days, you can say goodbye to the food in the freezer!

However, an automatic transfer switch will detect when the power goes down, fire up the generator, and within a few seconds the lights will be back on. The choice is yours.  

The likelihood of power shortages and outages in the UK has increased considerably since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Only a few days ago, MPs were warned that oil and gas could be rationed because of the crazy increase in prices. Experts have stated that household energy bills could increase to £3,000 a year – that is £60 a week!

The US, UK and EU have unveiled a growing list of sanctions, including on the import of Russian oil and gas. While only 3-4% of UK gas comes from Russia, plus 8% of our oil, Russia provides 40% of the EU’s gas and 25% of its’ oil, which means that energy price increases on the continent will have a major knock-on effect elsewhere. 

At a Treasury select committee in parliament on Monday March 14th, Dr Amrita Sen, director of research at Energy Aspects, told MPs that the rationing of diesel and gas could be on the horizon as a result of supply issues and growing instability in energy markets. That can have a serious effect on electricity supplies.

What’s The Answer?

So, what is the answer? What can you do to keep the lights on and the wheels turning if the power goes down?

Fortunately, there is an answer, and it is one which quite a lot of businesses have been investing in recently. Many businesses simply cannot operate without electricity, and for place such as hospitals it is vital that they keep the power going. So, the answer is a standby generator.

If you have a standby generator in your home or at your business premises and you team it with an automatic transfer switch, when the power goes down you will only be without electricity for a matter of seconds.

Now, a new standby generator can cost quite a bit of money, depending upon the amount of power that you need to produce. However, you don’t have to buy a new generator because you can also find used generators for sale in the UK.

Indeed, at Blades Power Generation, we always have a selection of used generators for sale in the UK because as businesses expand, they find that they need a generator with more capacity than the one that they currently have. So, they come to us for a bigger generator and then trade in the existing one. We are happy to do that because it is a profitable deal for us, and it also means that you can get a generator for your home or business for a lot less than buying a new one. 

It is a fact that, today, the majority of people take electricity for granted. You flick a switch, and the light comes on. You would be absolutely astonished if you flicked the switch, and nothing happened!

And yet, the power can go down at any time, and usually just at the worst possible time. Moreover, with the way that things are going in the world just at the moment, it is becoming increasingly likely that there will be power shortages and outages.

This may, or may not, give you some concern. However, these days we do rely on electricity for much more than we used to 50 or 60 years ago. Just for starters, most people today have a freezer full of food. If the power goes down for a couple of days, you can say goodbye to that lot. Furthermore, if you have no power, how do you charge your mobile, or use your laptop to work from home as so many more people do? The answer is that you don’t, if the power is down.

As for running a business, you are reliant on electricity to keep going. If you have no electricity, your business simply cannot function.

A Couple Of Tips If the Lights Go Out

A couple of good tips if the lights go out in your business is to check other local buildings and offices. If they still have power, the odds are that the issue is in your own building, and you will need to call an electrician. It is also a very good idea to turn off all computers, printers, and other appliances because when the power is restored it can cause a power surge and this can result in damage to the appliances.

The very best answer today is to invest in a standby generator to cover the occasions when the power goes down. This will take over and keep your business going.

The best way to use a standby generator is to have an automatic transfer switch. This will kick in immediately the power goes down and start the generator, so you will only be without power for a matter of seconds.

Certainly, you can use a manual transfer switch, but that means that you have to go and start the generator by hand. If you happen to be away from the office but things still need electricity, that means that there will be no power until you return. An automatic transfer switch does the job for you.