2026-09-14 · Jhonatan Matias
How much does a power outage cost a business in Chile: the bill no one talks about.
Market references in Chilean pesos per hour without electricity, according to category, and when that figure already justifies installing a critical backup.
Published on September 14, 2026. The figures and references pertain to that edition; the current scope is defined in the proposal.
Most small and medium-sized businesses in Magallanes react to a power outage, but few actually measure its financial impact. As a result, backup power solutions are typically based on the feeling of “this happens frequently,” rather than a calculated comparison against the cost of installing a UPS. This is Ditap Energía’s approach, using market references.
How much does an hour without electricity cost, by category?
These are net market references, excluding VAT, for a typical business in each sector in Chile. They do not replace a real measurement; they are a starting point for deciding whether it’s worthwhile to evaluate a backing.
| Category | Estimated cost per hour | What is primarily lost. |
|---|---|---|
| Trade | $50.000 | Counter sales, payment system failure. |
| Office | $80.000 | Stopped working hours, network and servers |
| Hotel | $300.000 | Reservations, reception, refrigeration, guest experience |
| Refrigerator or plant. | $1.000.000 | Damaged merchandise, production line stopped. |
The difference between “rubros” (referring to small sales or transactions) isn’t random: a retail business loses a direct sale, but a meatpacking facility loses the entire product if the cold chain is interrupted for more than a couple of hours. A hotel experiences a similar situation: they lose the daily sales, and if the disruption coincides with guests staying at the hotel, it damages their reputation, as reflected in online reviews.
The monthly bill, with actual hours.
These same references, considering a month of varying scenarios with periods of no power, illustrate when the bill is paid:
| Months without electricity. | Trade | Office | Hotel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two hours | $100.000 | $160.000 | $600.000 |
| Four hours | $200.000 | $320.000 | $1.200.000 |
| Eight hours | $400.000 | $640.000 | $2.400.000 |
With only four hours of cumulative downtime in a month, a business has already lost the equivalent of a third of the cost of installing a UPS. For a hotel, the same scenario covers almost the entire cost of a 1-3 kVA UPS. The question that’s worth asking isn’t “how much does a backup cost?” but “how many months of downtime like this will it take to spend the same amount without having a backup installed?”
What does it cost to prevent a cut?
Installing a critical backup has a defined scope, not a blind guess.
- UPS systems ranging from 1 to 3 kVA, installed: starting at $700,000, Suitable for offices and commercial spaces, providing backup power for workstations, cash registers, and critical equipment for a couple of minutes to a couple of hours.
- UPS units ranging from 6 to 10 kVA, installed: between $3,500,000 and $4,200,000, This represents the ideal solution for a hotel with 20 to 50 rooms – covering reception, refrigeration, and network needs.
- Annual maintenance of the equipment: 12% of the installed value, to ensure that the actual performance doesn’t decline without anyone noticing.
These prices are net, excluding VAT, and include the land in Punta Arenas; outside the city, a travel allowance is also added.
How is your actual case calculated?
The tables above are a starting point, not your number. The evaluation of… critical backupWhich costs $120,000 + VAT and is deducted from the installation cost, measures the actual load of your control panel and tells you, based on that load, which component will fail first during a power outage and what size UPS is required. It’s not estimated by eye or using a generic table – it’s measured.
What to do with this figure.
If your business loses more in a typical month due to power outages than it costs to finance a UPS for twelve months, the decision has already been made by the numbers, not by the feeling of “one day.” If you don’t yet know how many hours of power outages you experience each month, that’s the first piece of data you should gather, even if it means manually counting over the last few weeks.
The calculator of… Ditap Energía cover/front page Perform this same calculation using your field and your hours, to have a reference number before requesting the evaluation.