Anticipating a Total Blackout, UMS FKI Students Develop Blackout Protocol as a City Contingency Protocol

The global energy crisis and the potential for a total power outage, or blackout, have prompted five students from the Faculty of Communication and Informatics (FKI) at Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta (UMS) to design a city contingency concept called Blackout Protocol. The concept is designed as a preparedness protocol prepared in advance of a crisis, ready to be activated immediately when a total blackout occurs.

Through the Student Creativity Program in Constructive Idea Video (PKM VGK), organized by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology through Belmawa, the UMS students' concept made it through to the funding stage. Official notice of the funding was issued by Belmawa on 23 May 2026.

The concept carries the title "Blackout Protocol: A City Contingency Model on the Brink of Chaos Due to the Impact of a Global Energy Shutdown in Indonesia." The team consists of Reyhana Elsa as team leader, along with Muthia Azizah, Ardianto Wahyu, Fais Bayu, and Afkar Fakhru. The five students come from across the Communication Science and Informatics Engineering study programs at UMS's FKI.

Unlike energy resilience concepts that typically focus on providing backup energy sources or restoring the power grid, Blackout Protocol centers on the operational preparedness of a city as a whole. The protocol is designed to make sure basic public services can keep running while the main power grid has not yet been restored.

Team leader Reyhana Elsa explained that the concept grew out of the team's concern over how vulnerable the energy and power system is to various disruptions, whether caused by disasters or global dynamics.

According to her, the team looked at a number of events, from the major Java Bali blackout in 2019, to the impact of the 2025 Aceh floods, to geopolitical tension in the Strait of Hormuz, which has the potential to affect global energy supply.

For the team, the issue of a blackout isn't only about how quickly the power supply can be restored. Beyond that, there's the question of how a city can continue carrying out its most vital functions throughout an emergency.

That's why Blackout Protocol is designed as a contingency activation framework that sets out priority services, backup energy sources, service points, and mechanisms for public access to services when electricity and communication networks are disrupted.

"If a total blackout really happens, there are several sectors we consider most critical to the continuity of daily life for the public: health, banking, traffic, and water. That's why these four sectors are our focus," Reyhana said on Friday (11/9/2026).

In the Blackout Protocol scenario, a number of vital facilities, such as hospitals, ATMs at strategic points, and traffic lights, are treated as priority services that must keep operating. The team proposes using solar panels as a backup energy source whenever the main power grid is disrupted.

The installation of these backup energy sources is designed for dense, easily accessible locations. For traffic lights specifically, the system is intended to minimize the potential for accidents that could occur when the signals controlling traffic flow at intersections stop working.

Beyond the health, banking, and traffic sectors, the team also paid attention to the continuity of public access to clean water. For that purpose, they designed a device called AQUARES (Autonomous Water Resilience System).

The system is designed to pump groundwater from deep wells using solar power. The water is then channeled to a reservoir before being distributed to residential areas through an underground pipe network.

Residents would then be able to access water using an RFID card designed to work offline. With this system, clean water service is expected to keep running even if internet and communication networks are also disrupted during a blackout.

Based on the team's initial research, contingency approaches specifically aimed at maintaining city services during a blackout have not yet received adequate attention.

Discussions of energy resilience have so far tended to focus on issues of supply, grid infrastructure, power generation sources, and technical recovery after a disruption occurs. Meanwhile, the team has not found a city level contingency protocol that specifically brings together the continuity of health services, financial transactions, traffic, and clean water throughout a blackout.

That's where the team places the novelty of Blackout Protocol. The concept's novelty lies not only in the use of solar panels or the development of AQUARES, but in the effort to bring these various solutions together into a single preparedness protocol that can be activated immediately when an emergency occurs.

The team's supervising lecturer, Siti Azizah Susilawati, S.Si., MP., Ph.D., said the concept fills a gap that has so far received little attention in energy recovery policy.

"The recovery programs our government has carried out so far have focused on major infrastructure and tend to stay at the technical level, without reaching the everyday operational needs of residents. Yet during a crisis, health services, financial transactions, traffic, and clean water are all things that can't be put on hold, which is why the Blackout Protocol concept is considered relevant to develop further," Azizah said.

Through Blackout Protocol, the UMS FKI student team hopes local governments and stakeholders will not only have a scenario for restoring the power system after a disruption occurs, but will also have a protocol that's already ready to be activated while a blackout is underway.

With that kind of readiness, when a power outage happens on a large scale and lasts an extended period, a city wouldn't need to start its response from zero. Priority services, backup resources, service points, and operational mechanisms would already have been prepared in advance, under normal conditions.

"This concept also shows the contribution UMS students can make in responding to future challenges through a cross disciplinary approach. The collaboration between Communication Science and Informatics Engineering students on Blackout Protocol brings forward the perspective that preparedness for an energy crisis requires not only technological solutions, but also communication systems, coordination, and operational protocols capable of sustaining the continuity of people's daily lives," she concluded.

Writer: Fika Annisa Sholihah

Editor: Maysali Sudarwati

Translator: Farizal Luqman Majid