For some time now, the media has been full of reports about a possible electricity crisis with prolonged power outages in the coming months. Private individuals and the economy would suffer as a result. The poesia group therefore carried out "Operation Blackout".

On Saturday, 3 December 2022, a group of seven employees and three external specialists simulated a complete power outage with a targeted power cut-off.

Punctually at 7.30 a.m., the eniwa specialist cut off the entire power supply in order to later switch to the emergency power supply.

Reason for the exercise
The aim of the exercise was to find out how long emergency operation with power supply from the in-house battery storage system is possible. This is charged by the large photovoltaic system that the poesia group installed a few years ago.

Operation with emergency power supply
After a few minutes, the specialist of O. Kohler AG, Fischbach-Göslikon, initiated operation with emergency power from the storage battery. Only 10 seconds later, the light automatically came back on. The servers and PC workstations as well as the telephone system also started up again without any problems. This was monitored by the company AS infotrack AG . The Kardex system was manually restarted a short time later. It was also easy to operate again – including the packaging of the ordered seals up to the provision at the loading ramp.

The test showed that the transition to the power supply from the storage battery is possible smoothly and that the in-house subsidiary mk dichtungs ag could continue to work for several hours in the event of a power failure thanks to the power supply from the storage battery.

How long does the battery storage last?
At the start of the trial, the battery storage system was about 50% full, which corresponds to a capacity of 75 kWh. Thanks to the photovoltaic system and three of the nine inverters in operation, another 2 kWh of electricity had been added by 10 a.m.

Back to normal operation
Shortly after 11 a.m., the electricity supply was switched back to the normal grid. Fortunately, everything also went according to plan. Finally, all production facilities were restarted, which were also taken off the grid during the trial. The "Operation Blackout" was concluded by all persons involved with a joint fondue dinner, during which the successful test was celebrated.

Result
The emergency operation lasted 3.5 hours. By the end of the trial at 11 a.m., the amount of electricity available had dropped to around 22.2 kWh. This would have ensured operation for another 3 to 4 hours. This would allow mk dichtungs ag to continue working with emergency power for almost an entire working day. However, the exact duration depends very much on how intensively the Kardex logistics system is used, because it consumes significantly more power than, for example, a PC workstation. The "Operation Blackout" ended with the realization that the poesia group is prepared for a possible blackout.

Note on the experiment
During Operation Blackout, the poesia group concentrated on office operations with ICT, telephony, lighting and the Kardex logistics system. All production machines were not integrated into the test, as their power consumption is too high and the capacity of the storage battery would not last long.

The poesia group employs more than 70 people including four apprentices. It operates at the main site in Unterkulm as well as at the external locations Hochdorf and Urdorf. It produces plastic seals for applications in the construction, engineering, transport and food industries.