Load Shedding & Your Business: IT Tips to Stay Online
Load shedding is no longer a once-off crisis to plan for — it's a recurring operating condition for KZN businesses. The businesses that cope best aren't the ones with the biggest budgets, they're the ones with the simplest, most reliable setup. Here's what actually matters.
1. A small UPS is the highest-value purchase you can make
You don't need a generator to stay productive through a 2-hour stage. A basic UPS (uninterruptible power supply) keeping your router, modem, and one PC alive is usually enough to keep taking orders, answering emails, and processing card payments through short outages.
2. Protect your router separately from your PC
Most people only think to protect their computer, but if your router loses power, you lose internet even if your laptop is still running on battery. A small, dedicated UPS for router + modem is cheap and often more useful than protecting a desktop PC.
3. Automate your backups — don't rely on memory
Sudden power loss is one of the most common causes of data corruption on desktop PCs without a UPS. Cloud backup (or even a scheduled local backup to an external drive) means a bad shutdown costs you nothing more than the interruption itself.
4. Know your load shedding schedule for the week, not just today
Apps and municipal schedules let you plan client calls, invoicing runs, or anything time-sensitive around the outage windows rather than getting caught mid-task.
5. Cellular data as a WiFi backup
A basic mobile hotspot or a phone's hotspot feature is a reliable fallback if fibre goes down during an outage — worth testing before you need it in a hurry, not during a crisis.
