Power vs. Endurance: Why Properly Sizing Your Battery Backup System Makes All the Difference

When it comes to protecting mission-critical medical equipment, most people focus on “power” — how much wattage a device needs to run. But in the real world of healthcare operations, power is only half the equation. The other half, often overlooked until it’s too late, is endurance.

In a power outage, it’s not enough for your battery backup system to turn equipment on. It must also keep it running long enough to safeguard medications, protect patients, and maintain compliance. And those two goals—power and endurance—don’t always align unless the system is sized correctly from the start.

Power Gets You Started. Endurance Gets You Through.

For any battery backup solution, “power” refers to the system’s ability to deliver enough instantaneous electricity to start and run your equipment. This is essential, especially for medical refrigerators and freezers whose compressors require a surge of energy when they first kick on.

But once the equipment is running, a second question becomes critical:

How long can the system sustain that load?

That is endurance—measured in runtime. And in healthcare settings, endurance is often the difference between a successful power event and a costly failure.

Consider a pharmacy refrigerator holding vaccines worth tens—or even hundreds—of thousands of dollars. A system sized only for power may run the refrigerator for 30 minutes, but a properly sized system may protect it for four hours or more. In a surgical center, the difference between 10 minutes and 60 minutes of runtime could determine whether a procedure is safely completed or abruptly halted.

Undersized Systems Are More Common Than You Think

Many facilities unknowingly purchase battery backup systems based solely on wattage. These systems often appear to work fine—until a real outage occurs. Then the truth emerges: the system has the power to start the equipment but nowhere near the endurance required to maintain it.

This isn’t just inconvenient. It has real consequences, like vaccine spoilage, temperature excursions and compliance violations, delayed or interrupted patient care, unexpected equipment shutdowns as well as financial loss and operational downtime.

A properly sized battery system eliminates these risks by matching both the device’s power requirements and the facility’s endurance needs.

Sizing Isn’t Guesswork—It’s Engineering

Proper battery sizing requires understanding not just the equipment’s wattage but its startup current, operating cycle, ambient conditions, and the minimum acceptable runtime for your operation.

That’s why Medi-Products approaches every system as a custom-engineered solution. For pharmacies, we look at equipment load profiles and cold-chain duration requirements. For surgical centers, we focus on continuous operation and patient-safety considerations. In every case, the goal is the same: ensure that your system lasts as long as your mission demands.

Power Starts the Job. Endurance Finishes It.

In healthcare, a power outage isn’t a simple inconvenience—it’s a threat to safety, compliance, and financial stability. A battery backup system that delivers power without endurance is like a race car with no fuel tank: impressive on paper, but unable to finish the course.

The right system doesn’t just turn the lights on.
It keeps them on.

If you’d like help determining the ideal sizing and endurance for your equipment, the Medi-Products team is here to guide you through every step.

Call us at 1.800.765.3237 or fill out the form below to speak with one of our emergency backup power experts today!