The Northern Lights

The incredible occurrence of the Northern Lights can be seen in the night sky over Britain at this time of year. The Northern Lights occur because of solar activity or solar flares and are a result of charged particles in the solar wind colliding with molecules in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

In the last week, we’ve seen the sky light up with large areas of colour and it’s a beautiful sight.

How the Impact of Solar Flares affect Electricity

Did you know that the particles from solar flares can distort Earth’s magnetic field? This in turn can disrupt navigation systems and also cause surges in electrical systems which results in damage, blackouts and disruption to satellites.

The biggest solar storms can in fact cause ripple effects to our power systems, our heating and even destroy electrical infrastructure which can send electronic communications haywire–and it’s happened several times before!

You can find out more about this phenomenon on websites such as Space Weather: Met Office and NASA (which we referenced for this short article).

We like to be prepared

The security industry operates 24/7, 365 days per year and needs to be up and running under all circumstances. Our favourite solution for 24/7 power is the Kratos UPS range that we manufacture and distribute here at QED.

The Kratos Talos range is ideal for small, low-power protection applications where reliable power must be scaled to cater for cost and space constraints. The small compact tower UPSs are ideal when you need to back up valuable information should the power switch off.

The Kratos Nemesis range is a powerful range of UPS unit. As an online UPS, this product offers protection from power surges and spikes as the current is first flowed through the batteries and then to the connected equipment. As a result, you’ll see a higher level of protection than standard line interactive UPSs. Greater back up time can be achieved with the use of external battery packs.

If you’re wondering what UPS would be the right solution for your requirements, you might want to utilise our Kratos UPS calculator. This handy little feature will save you time figuring out which UPS you need.