Practical instructions for preparing for power outages

We compiled practical instructions and tips for central government personnel to streamline their work during possible power outages.

Preparing for a power outage in a nutshell

• Before a power outage: Keep your devices charged. Reduce their battery consumption. Download important documents to your devices.
• During a power outage: Unplug power cords. Reduce your devices’ power consumption. Prioritise your work tasks. Save your work more often. 
• In all situations: Take care of your capacity to function with emergency supplies. 

Read the more detailed instructions below.

Before a power outage

• Charge the batteries of the devices you use in your work regularly so that their charge will be enough for working during possible power outages.

• Find out in advance where you will move to work if you are unable to work at a remote workstation due to a power outage. 

• Make sure, by practising in advance, that you know how to share an internet connection through your mobile device if sharing is allowed on your device. By doing this, you can get an internet connection to your computer when it is necessary, even if the internet connection at your home is down due to a power outage. If the power outage is very extensive, it is possible that the mobile network will not be available either.

• Reduce your devices’ power consumption by, for example, 
  • enabling the automatic power saving mode when you have not used your device for several minutes. If you do not need an internet connection, Bluetooth or other wireless connections, you can also use the airplane mode to reduce power consumption.
  •  Turn off your device when you stop working and you do not need it for several hours. In this case, make sure that your device does not have any important updates that are scheduled to be installed.
  • You can also decrease the brightness of the screen and keyboard or use dark themes to reduce power consumption.
  • Instructions for extending Android devices’ battery life 
  • Instructions for extending iOS devices’ battery life
  • Microsoft’s battery saving tips, Windows 10 & 11 
• You can buy power banks. Remember to keep them charged. By doing this, you ensure that you can keep your devices running for several hours.

• Download any important instructions and documents to your devices’ internal hard drive (a desktop or mobile device’s files folder) so that they can be accessed even without an internet connection.

During a power outage

• If you lose power, unplug your devices’ power cords from the wall socket just to be safe. By doing this, you prevent possible power surges from damaging your devices when power returns. You can observe the return of power through, for example, street lighting, air conditioning or a lamp that you have left on.
• Use the above methods to reduce your devices’ power consumption.
• Prioritise your work tasks during a power outage.  
  • Carry out urgent work tasks first and leave the others for later. If you have a critical work task that can only be done at a later time, set your device to the power saving mode or turn it off until you can carry out the task if necessary.
  • All work tasks might not require an internet connection. When your connections work, focus on your core task and prepare things in advance so that you can take care of them offline.
• Save your work more often than usual. By doing this, your work will be saved even if your device runs out of power.

In all situations

Finally, remember to also take care of your own capacity to function in all kinds of situations and reserve emergency supplies, including medicines, water, food and warm clothes, for example. 

You can find general instructions for power outages below.

How to prepare for a power outage - Finnish Red Cross 
Emergency supplies - Rescue services 
72 hours - Rescue services 
How to prepare for long power outages (PDF) - valtioneuvosto.fi (in Finnish)