The U.S. is a rather technologically advanced company and the Twin Cities is among the leaders in innovation with all of the tech companies that locate here.

Despite all of the innovation, the power grid dates back to the 1960s and 1970s, which means it is aging. An aging power grid results in more frequent power outages. In fact, the rate of increase is two percent annually. Between 1991 and 2001, the number of annual non-disaster power outages increased by 124 percent.

That’s a lot!

In Minnesota, the average customer experiences power outages of less than two hours, but that was in 2008.

Since then, the state has seen some rather significant weather events, as well as outages not related to the weather. The point is that power grid reliability is on the decline and that is causing many people to do something about it.

Homeowners are buying emergency generators to keep their households running during outages. For someone who has a health problem, small children, or a basement that relies on a sump pump when it rains, an outage of just a couple of hours can be dangerous.

For businesses, a power outage lasting just a couple of hours can cost thousands of dollars and that financial damage hurts the business and its employees.

You can protect your home and business with a backup generator that will provide the electricity needed to keep things running. It taps into the fuel supply that goes to the home or business in order to remain operational as long as it needs to be. While some power outages may only last a couple of hours, Minnesota has seen outages that have lasted for days, especially in bad weather.

Because a permanent standby generator stays put, it is automated. This means it starts when the power goes out so that the home or business is immediately provided with the power it needs.