How much back-up power does a municipal crisis centre need?

List the sites your emergency plan relies on, then the loads in each that must keep running. Decide how many hours each site must bridge, and test it in an exercise. Our guide to the right emergency power supply for your business compares UPS, generator and battery; the same logic applies to a town hall. Battery systems for businesses and public sites take over within milliseconds, so the crisis room never goes dark.

After the Iberian blackout of April 2025, a Belgian Reddit thread asked what everyone in a town hall asks: "What fails first? What keeps running? And who steps in during such a blackout?" For an emergency planning coordinator, the question is sharper. Your plan has a fiche with the address of the crisis room, the Wi-Fi code and the ASTRID radios. Does it say what happens when that building has no power?

A long power cut hits the emergency plan twice. It is the emergency, and it switches off the tools to manage it. The crisis room is often in the town hall, on the same grid as the streets it must coordinate. The reception centre is a sports hall with electric lighting and heating controls. And the obvious fix, "we will get a generator", falls apart when the whole region wants one on the same evening.

Public-facing sites already run on their own power. A private school in Incourt runs fully off-grid on new solar panels, a battery system and a generator. At the bicycle bridge between Waregem and Wielsbeke, the nearest grid connection was very far away. The ship lighting and street lighting run on an off-grid system with extra solar panels.

What does the emergency plan require from a municipal crisis centre?

Every mayor must have a general emergency and intervention plan (ANIP in Dutch, PGUI in French). The Royal Decree of 22 May 2019 is the legal framework. The plan must also list reception and housing centres for people who cannot go home.

The ministerial circular of 14 May 2024 explains the decree in detail. It recommends that a crisis centre has at least:

• a meeting room for at least 10 people, plus smaller back-office rooms;
• whiteboards, screens or projectors;
• one or more ASTRID radios, and possibly an analogue radio link;
• a video or telephone conference system, telephony and internet;
• printing, copying and scanning equipment, and a room for a press conference.

Look at that list again: every item except the whiteboard stops without electricity. The circular also recommends an alternative crisis centre for when the usual one cannot be used. A risk analysis decides where it goes, far enough from the main one.

Which municipal sites need back-up power in the emergency plan?

At least the crisis centre, its alternative, the reception centre and the place that answers residents. The first reception of people after an emergency is the responsibility of the municipality, according to the 2024 circular.

The NCCN template for the plan asks, per reception centre, for the location, contact persons, capacity, sanitary facilities, beds and parking. Electricity is not on that list. Add one line per site: on back-up or not, and for how long.

People with medical equipment at home may also turn up at a reception centre. Our article on what must keep running in a care home or medical practice covers oxygen, medicine fridges and lifts.

Which loads must keep running in a crisis room and a reception centre?

Communication first, then light and heat, then comfort. A crisis room that can talk to the outside world but has no heating still works. One with heating but no radio, phone or internet does not.

1. Step 1: Communication. ASTRID radios and their chargers, the phone exchange, the internet router, the network switch and the laptops.
2. Step 2: Light and access. Lighting in the rooms, corridors and toilets, and doors or gates that only open electrically.
3. Step 3: Heat. Most gas or oil boilers need electricity for their pumps and controls. Without power, the boiler stops too.
4. Step 4: Water and food. According to FOD Economie, water pressure can drop during a cut in some areas. A kettle, a fridge and a coffee machine keep a team going for a long night.
5. Step 5: Everything else waits. Air conditioning, the office floors and the council chamber do not belong on the back-up circuit.

How long must a municipal crisis centre keep running without the grid?

Neither the 2024 circular nor the NCCN template sets a number of hours, so your plan has to. Official figures show how fast the rest of the chain fails.

A planned load shedding normally lasts a few hours at the moments of highest use, according to FOD Economie. Our article on what a blackout would mean in Belgium explains the load-shedding plan and its slices. Storms, floods or a fault on a large cable can last much longer.

Two numbers help. The crisis centre must outlast the mobile network by a wide margin, because it becomes the place people and services turn to. And the European Commission asks citizens to keep supplies for at least 72 hours. A municipality that expects residents to bridge three days should be able to coordinate for three days.

In practice, that means two layers. A battery covers the first hours without a gap and without noise. A generator with a fuel supply covers the days.

How do you calculate how much back-up power a site needs?

Add up the power of the loads that must run, then multiply by the hours you want to bridge. Power (kW) sets the size of the inverter or generator. Energy (kWh) sets the size of the battery.

An example with round figures: a crisis room that draws 2 kW on average for 24 hours needs 48 kWh. Real losses and a safety margin come on top. Take measured figures where you can: a week of metering on the circuits you plan to keep tells you more than any list of nameplates.

Watch the peaks as well as the average. Every motor draws several times its running current for a few seconds when it starts. A pump, a lift or a compressor on the back-up circuit decides the inverter power, not the lamps and laptops.

Solar panels on the town hall do not help on their own. The Synergrid rule C10/11 requires grid-connected inverters to switch off when the grid fails. They only keep producing when a battery system forms a local grid for them, and then they recharge that battery by day.

Battery, generator or both: what fits each site in the plan?

For the main crisis centre, a battery plus a generator that starts automatically gives no gap and no time limit. For the other sites, a prepared connection for a mobile generator is often enough.

According to Victron, a MultiPlus-II takes over in less than 20 milliseconds, fast enough to keep computers running. A Victron GX controller can start and stop a generator on the battery state of charge. Our article on combining a generator with a battery explains how the two share the work.

For the switch between grid and generator, read our article on a manual or automatic transfer switch. For the IT room, see small UPS units or one central battery. Critical infrastructure uses the same building blocks: our media section shows a video of a back-up system for an airport control tower.

Can you rely on a requisitioned or rented generator?

Only for a local cut, and only if the generator, the cable, the fuel and the person to connect it all exist. In a regional cut, every municipality, care home and company calls the same rental firms.

The Civil Security Act of 15 May 2007 (article 181) lets the mayor requisition people and goods when public services and means fall short. That is a legal tool, not a stock of machines. A requisition does not create a generator that is not there.

ASTRID itself shows the right order. Its masts have standard emergency batteries for at least six hours, and for longer cuts it can call on emergency generators through its suppliers. Battery first, generator second, both planned in advance.

A fixed generator also brings its own duties: fuel storage, noise, a permit and inspections. Our article on permits and inspections for a back-up generator lists them.

What should the power fiche in your emergency plan contain?

One short fiche per site, next to the fiche with the address and the Wi-Fi code. It answers the questions nobody wants to ask at 8 pm in the dark.

• Which circuits and rooms are on back-up, and which are not.
• How many hours the battery lasts at the expected load, and how long the generator runs on a full tank.
• Who starts or checks the back-up, with a stand-in outside office hours.
• Where the fuel comes from: stock on site, supplier, contract and delivery time.
• Where a mobile generator connects, with the plug type and the power it needs.
• The date and result of the last test under load.

The security cell tests the plans in exercises. Add a power cut to the scenario at least once: switch off the grid supply of the crisis centre and see what still works. It is the cheapest way to find the gap.

When is a fixed back-up system not worth it for a municipality?

When a partner already has a crisis room with back-up power that you can use.

A public body usually has to follow the procurement rules for such a system. Our article on how a municipality or public body buys a battery explains the procedures and the specifications. Schools can read whether a school can run on its own electricity. For small loads outdoors, see lighting, signage and cameras without a grid connection.

What happens when a municipality asks us to secure its crisis centre?

We start with the plan: which sites, which loads, how many hours.

1. Step 1: Analysis. We list the critical loads per site and their start currents. If data is missing, we can measure the consumption first.
2. Step 2: Technical design. We choose the battery, the inverter power, the changeover and, where useful, a generator as second line.
3. Step 3: Installation and commissioning.
4. Step 4: Monitoring and support. You follow the state of charge and the consumption in our monitoring software.

Our battery systems for businesses range from small installations to modular systems up to 1 MW.