Why prepare for blackouts in October, not November
In autumn, nobody asks any more whether there will be power outages. In September 2026, the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine (AmCham Ukraine) and Deloitte Ukraine surveyed 95 business leaders from AmCham member companies: 62% named electricity outages among the main risks to their business this winter. Among priority measures, respondents most often cited strengthening backup energy supply (74%), while fewer than half (47%) cited employee support plans. Only 21% of planned measures have been fully completed, and another 60% are under way.
Just 48% of companies have a written business continuity plan, and around 30% still lack formalised process descriptions and allocation of responsibilities. A plan matters as much as the generator’s capacity: it decides whether the team keeps working when the power goes out in the middle of the working day.
September and October still leave time to prepare: you can buy and test equipment without rushing and agree on arrangements with the team and clients. In November, the same will have to be done in a hurry.
Weak spots: what will stop work first
Start with a simple question: what stops working if the power is off for half a day? Every company has its own answer, but the weak spots are mostly the same.
| What to check | Question | Fallback options |
|---|---|---|
| Power | Which devices are critical and how many hours must they run? | Portable power stations, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), a generator |
| Connectivity | Will there be internet when both the office and the provider are without power? | A second provider, mobile or satellite internet |
| Data | Where are the working files, and can people work with them from home? | A server on backup power, the cloud, backups |
| Building | What do electronic locks do without power? Do the lift and the water and heating pumps work? | A mechanical lock and key, the stairs, stored water |
| People | Who works, and from where, if the office has no power? | Working hours planned around rolling outage schedules, remote work |
| Clients | Who warns clients about changed deadlines, and when? | A communication procedure agreed in advance |
This list is the basis of a business continuity plan: a document that sets out what to do, who is responsible and what to switch to when business as usual is not possible.
Power and connectivity: what has to work at the bureau
Three things are critical for an architecture bureau: workstations, the server and the internet. Workstations are where we draw and model, while the server and the internet let the team work together and stay in touch with clients. Our workstations run on EcoFlow portable power stations, and the server and the internet are on backup power too.
A UPS, a portable power station and a generator do different jobs. A typical office UPS for a computer gives you a few minutes to save your work and shut the equipment down properly. A portable power station quietly keeps laptops, monitors and the router running for hours, indoors. A generator is meant for long outages and heavy loads, but it needs a separate place outdoors and fuel.
Before buying equipment, calculate the load: list the devices that must keep running, their wattage and required running time. That will tell you whether you need a portable power station, a UPS or a generator.
Processes: how not to depend on power or on one person
A generator keeps the lights on, but it does not answer other questions. Who makes decisions if the manager is out of contact? Where is the current version of the drawings? What if a deadline falls on a day with a long outage?
It is better to write the answers down in advance: who stands in for whom, where files are stored and how often they are backed up, how the team learns about changes of plan. Part of the knowledge should move out of people’s heads into shared documents: design standards, reusable design solutions and checklists. Then work will not stop if the person you need happens to be without power right now.
Clients are a separate matter. If outages may shift deadlines, it is better to say so at the start than to explain the delay on the day of delivery. An honest conversation in advance protects trust.
People: how to look after the team
Winter drains more than the power grid. People have to fit work in between outages, get to the office and look after their families. So the preparation plan has to take them into account too.
- Flexible hours. The working day can be planned around rolling outage schedules in different districts.
- Remote work. Agree in advance who can work from home and how the team stays in touch.
- The office as a warm space. If there is no power at home, people can come and work at the office, where there is light, heat, connectivity and tea.
- Attention to how the team is doing. Fatigue builds up, and a manager should notice it before it shows in the work.
Space: what architecture can offer
Some winter problems can be solved by the layout. In a new office building, much can be built in at the architectural concept stage, and some things can still be done in an office that is already fitted out.
- Daylight. How much of it an office gets depends on the shape of the building: in the 10A office building project in Kyiv’s Podil district, the building footprint was limited, among other things, by daylight and insolation requirements. Glass partitions and an open-plan layout let light deep into the floor plate, and near the windows some work can be done during the day without switching on the lights. We wrote in detail about how architecture works with the sun in our article on insolation.
- A warm core. Heating a whole office without power is hard, but a small room with few external walls and windows is easier to keep warm. During outages, you can move the portable power stations, the router and some desks there. Open flames and gas heaters in a closed room are dangerous: they burn oxygen and can cause carbon monoxide poisoning.
- A place for the generator. Under Ukraine’s Fire Safety Rules, a generator of up to 20 kW must not be used inside residential, public or industrial buildings, on their roofs or balconies, in extensions, in storage rooms or on routes to emergency exits. It is placed outdoors on a level, non-combustible pad cleared of rubbish and combustible materials. The distance to the building depends on the generator’s power: from 1 to 10 m to blank non-combustible walls without openings and from 4 to 12 m to other walls. The generator must not obstruct access to emergency exits and fire hydrants or the passage of fire engines. Up to 40 litres of fuel may be stored in a separate outbuilding or garage at least 7 m from buildings; storage inside the building is allowed only under martial law and only in a room that meets the requirements of the Fire Safety Rules.
- Connection. Only specialists authorised to work on electrical installations may connect a generator to the building’s electrical system, in line with Ukraine’s Electrical Installation Rules: manually, through an interlock that prevents power from being fed into the building’s system and the external grid at the same time, and with a way to switch off the power remotely and safely. Plugging a generator into a socket is prohibited. Generators above 20 kW are installed according to building codes, so this becomes a design matter: in general design, where one firm leads the whole project, it is coordinated between the architectural and engineering parts.
- Doors and stairs. Check what your electronic lock does without power: an electromagnetic lock usually releases, while an electromechanical one may stay locked. When people are inside, emergency exit doors may only be fastened with internal bolts or latches that open from the inside without a key. Stairs and corridors need battery-powered lights: in the dark, that is where people most easily get hurt.
What I took away from a conversation at a business club
Recently, at a business club, I talked to entrepreneurs about preparing for winter. That conversation made me take a fresh look at some familiar management decisions and rethink my own approach to preparing the company.
Preparing for winter is a management decision, not a purchase. You can buy a generator or a portable power station quickly, but it takes longer to draw up a plan that sets out who is responsible for what and to get the team used to following it. Other people’s experience is useful because it shows weak spots you cannot see from the inside: someone has already been through the situation you are only preparing for. That is why it helps to discuss your plan not only with your team, but also with peers from other industries.
Checklist: preparing for winter and blackouts
| Area | What to do |
|---|---|
| Weak spots | List what will stop without power, connectivity and heat |
| Power | Calculate the load and running time of critical devices; choose portable power stations, a UPS or a generator |
| Connectivity | Set up a second internet connection and check that the router runs on backup power |
| Data | Check that files are accessible outside the office and that backups actually restore |
| Building | Check the doors, stairs, water, heating and the place for the generator |
| People | Agree on working hours and remote work; set up a warm space in the office |
| Clients | Agree on how to warn them about changed deadlines |
| Plan | Write down who is responsible for what and share the plan with the team |
Winter may bring various challenges, but preparing in advance lets you meet them with a clear plan of action instead of deciding everything at the last minute.
Sources
- Electricity Outages Top Challenge for 62% of Businesses in Ukraine This Winter — AmCham Ukraine and Deloitte Ukraine study, 7 October 2026
- Fire Safety Rules of Ukraine (Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 1417 of 30 December 2014, in Ukrainian): Section III, cl. 2.27; Section IV, Chapter 5 “Power-generating equipment”, cl. 5.1–5.19 and Annex 1
- Anna Iskierdo on preparing a business for winter — Instagram post, 6 October 2026 (in Ukrainian)