As the American electricity grid becomes less dependable, a growing number of businesses and homeowners are buying their own power systems to protect themselves from being left in the dark, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Twenty years ago, only 0.57% of US homes worth $150,000 or more had installed backup generators, mainly along hurricane-prone coastlines. Now the number is 5.75%, a 10-fold increase.
Manufacturers delivered more than 143 000 generators last year in North America, up from 138 778 in 2015, despite pandemic-related supply-chain logjams, said Lucrecia Gomez, a research director at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.
Microgrids, which can create islands of power for campuses, businesses or neighbourhoods during blackouts, grew more than sevenfold between 2010 and 2019, according to the industry group Edison Electric Institute.
Many entrepreneurs now consider secondary power systems a necessary cost of doing business. Steve Peterson, who owns Hungry Howie’s Pizza franchises in Michigan, learned their value in 2003, when a massive blackout knocked out power to much of the Midwest and Northeast. Peterson had invested in backup generation—and said he had lines of people who wanted a hot meal stretching up to a hundred metres from the door.
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