Publix paying big bucks for backup power

Milk, check. Bread, check. And don't forget $100 million in backup generators. That's how much money at least one Florida grocery chain expects to spend on large electrical generators to keep stores operating in case a hurricane blows out some or all of Florida's electrical grid. The investment will be worth it, company executives say, after some hard lessons of the active 2004 hurricane season when four storms walloped the state in close sequence. The scenario that Publix and other grocery chains are trying to avoid: dark stores full of rotting food, just as thousands of customers go looking for supplies. But while some chains are spending heavily on generators, others are taking a more cautious approach and buying just a handful of portable generators to truck in if a storm strikes. Publix in particular is making the biggest bet on backup generators. The Lakeland-based chain is almost finished with a $100 million project to install permanent backup generators that run on diesel at stores considered "hurricane prone." That means nearly every Publix store in Florida, coastal Georgia and South Carolina. Other Publix sites have been re-wired so that portable generators can be plugged in quickly. Publix has finished installing backup generators at more than 500 stores, each one the size of a minivan, and powerful enough to power the entire location: Lights, refrigerators, air conditioning and cash registers. Publix officials say they'll ultimately install generators on nearly all its 932 stores in the Southeast. All new Publix stores are being built with generators on site, or portable hookups if the layout doesn't permit a permanent generator. Some stores had a brief test when Florida suffered an unexpected rolling blackout in February. Generators in several Publix stores automatically kicked on, said a Publix spokeswoman, Shannon Patten. Sweetbay, by contrast, is taking a somewhat different tack for hurricane season. The chain has bought six large, portable electrical generators, including three that can power every function of a store. Smaller generators can run refrigeration and cash registers. Total cost, about $1.5 million. Sweetbay's strategy is to keep mobile generators stored at strategic sites in the Southeast and move them to any of the roughly 100 Florida Sweetbay stores that lose power. Toward that end, the company has installed new wiring in all its stores so generators can be plugged in quickly. Whether that is enough generators will depend on the hurricane season, Sweetbay officials say. "It depends on the need, and last year there wasn't the need for generators," said a Sweetbay spokeswoman, Nicole Lebeau. The odds are slim, she said, that stores in different areas of Florida would go out at once. She also notes Sweetbay, owned by the Belgium-based Delhaize Group, is a relatively new company compared to Publix, and is still investing heavily on expansion plans. Wal-Mart, while it may have deep pockets as one of the world's biggest companies, is not reaching deep to buy many store generators. Wal-Mart operates 158 Supercenter stores with groceries in Florida, and 19 Neighborhood Markets. In most cases, Wal-Mart does not have generators at store locations. "We do have a number of portable generators that we can move to strategic locations in advance of a predictable natural disaster, such as a hurricane," said a Wal-Mart spokesman, Dan Fogleman. The grocery giant has struck deals with generator suppliers if the company needs more, he said.