UPS Reality Check: Batteries, Runtime, and Resilience in Commercial Buildings

In this 10-minute interview Alex Morgan sits down with commercial operations leader Michael Harrington to peel back the assumptions that make UPS systems a hidden risk in buildings. We open with a real-world scenario: a short outage where backup power didn’t deliver as expected. The conversation covers root causes—aging batteries, insufficient maintenance, mismatched runtime expectations, and single points of failure—then moves to tradeoffs between centralized vs. distributed UPS, runtime sizing, testing practices, and maintenance contracts. Michael shares concrete examples from property operations and capital planning, including low-cost changes that materially improve resilience. Listeners will leave with a pragmatic checklist for audits, testing cadence, documentation handoffs, and vendor oversight so facilities and IT teams can reduce surprises and protect tenant operations.