Irregular power cuts drive up UPS sales

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Despite the promises of the Energy Minister KJ George that there would be no power cuts, towns around Bengaluru are experiencing unscheduled load-shedding, leading to a spike in the purchase of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) units.

Bengaluru’s Siddaiah Road, which is home to a multitude of battery shops, has been witnessing consumers from towns in the periphery of Bengaluru including Ramanagara, Kanakapura and Magadi in Ramanagara district, Hosakote and Doddaballapur in Bengaluru Rural and Kolar city.

UPS retailers said their businesses had been devastated during the Covid pandemic and the accompanying lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, adding that they barely managed to survive as a result.

They added most of them had no option to sell their goods online either. However, business picked up after Covidrelated restrictions were lifted, adding that sales had peaked with an increase in unscheduled load shedding.

Now they are selling three to four times as many UPS units monthly compared to what they did in the past months. Middle class consumers can’t afford to lose power for long periods at unpredictable times because they’re either working from home or attending online classes, apart from doing domestic duties that require the help of electric appliances such as washing machines etc.

Therefore reliance on batteries has increased as the need for uninterrupted electricity rises, retailers said.