Winter blackouts: Will your backup generators work in the event of a power outage?

Operational risks of microbial contamination

As diesel is commonly used for emergency power generation, the potential for microbial growth exposes businesses to considerable operational risk.

Many operations have the facility to switch over to oil, but if that fuel has been sat stagnant for prolonged periods of time, it may not function when it is needed most.

Once microbial contamination starts it can grow very quickly. From one year to the next you can have a clean bill of health, to heavily contaminated fuel.

With even small amounts of water in a tank system, reformulated fuels can create a maintenance nightmare, such as biological activity, increased corrosion, blocked filters, lower pump flow rates, or total failure. Testing has therefore evolved from a best practice discipline to a critical part of the tank maintenance process.

If microbial contamination has occurred, we can uplift the fuel from your tank, perform a thorough clean of the tank’s internals to remove any contaminates, and then polish the fuel back to the clean tank. This will ensure a clean bill of health and, crucially, ensure the generator will provide power when required.

In the event of an extended power outage, we can also provide emergency fuel to keep your backup systems going.

With increased demand on capacity this winter, the best course of action is prevention.

We recommend testing your tanks ahead of the winter period and regularly throughout, to ensure your backup generator provides the power required in the event of a power outage caused by a blackout. Because an absolute focus on storage integrity has never been more critical for today’s backup generator.