Planning Your Emergency Power Needs

Whether it’s a scheduled shutdown or an emergency outage, plant engineers can save time and money by planning ahead to secure portable rental generator sets to meet their temporary or emergency electric power needs.

Most plant managers consider planning ahead for temporary power to be one of their key responsibilities, but there are others who wait until the last minute to secure the equipment needed when utility-supplied power goes off.  And sometimes the last minute can be too late.

Hurricanes, ice storms, and rolling blackouts are all good examples of planning ahead for temporary power.  In California many businesses were forced to close when mandatory blackouts were enforced.  The aftermath of hurricanes or ice storms can leave businesses without power for days or even weeks.  Some providers of emergency rental generator sets take proactive steps to ensure local businesses properly plan for emergencies.   Most qualified rental power dealerships provide ‘Emergency Power Planners’  which help businesses prepare for disasters months before they strike. Unfortunately, when the utility power goes down many businesses are left in the dark because they have not fully planned out their needs. However, companies that plan ahead get the rental power needed to keep their doors open.  These businesses are able to minimize their losses by getting up and running much sooner than those who hold out until the last minute.

Full vs. Priority Power

Before you rent temporary power, you must know how much you need.  To do so, determine whether to power your whole facility or only critical loads.

If you keep the whole facility operating as it would with utility-supplied power, you should determine the aggregate electrical load.  A simple and accurate way to do this is to take ammeter readings of your electrical distribution boxes when your facility is running at peak load.  To cross check, your utility bill will list peak electrical usage.

If you choose to power only certain functions, your first job is to prioritize individual loads.  If in doubt, think about the loss of profit or problems if certain functions were to lose power for longer periods of time than you can afford.  Lights, HVAC, furnaces, computers, process equipment, and pumps are examples of critical loads.  Prioritizing will help you decide which loads require power immediately during an emergency.  This is important since it may take several hours or longer to secure all of the rental equipment you need on site during a large-scale emergency.

In most facilities, a separate distribution box will feed critical loads.  If this is the case in your company, you may only need enough temporary power for the loads served by that set of circuit breakers.  Another method is to take an ammeter reading with just the critical loads running.  If you want to know the amperage or voltage of an individual piece of equipment, check the nameplate and it should be there.

Where to Find Rental Power

Determining your facilities’ power needs is only the first step.  Now you need to find a rental generator set dealership to fit those needs.  This is important because the generator sets you rent are only as reliable as the supplier who backs them.  The key is to find a local power rental dealership with the equipment you need, as well as a qualified staff to solve any problems that may arise.  It’s a good idea to visit the dealership to get to know the people you’ll be relying on.

Here are some questions to ask when you talk with a potential supplier:
• What is the kilowatt (kW) range of the rental generator set fleet?

• Is the dealership part of a nationwide network which can assist one location with additional rental sets during a large, regional crisis?

• Does the dealership deliver generator sets and related equipment? If so, how long will it take to get everything on-site?

• Will the dealership deliver in the middle of the night, or during a holiday?

• Does the dealership supply fuel?

• How are the rental contracts structured?

• What experience does the dealership have in renting equipment to your industry?

• What technical service/support is provided?

• Does the dealership offer training in equipment installation and operation?

• Is the rental power dealership an authorized sales and service representative of the products they rent?

• Does the rental power dealership stock genuine parts for the product they rent?

• What if the rental generator set goes down on-site?

The Basics

When you’ve familiarized yourself with suppliers, you need to think about the logistics involved in rental power setup.  Some of the questions you need to ask yourself are very basic, but extremely important nonetheless.  Here’s a brief checklist of key items to include in your plan:

• Where will you put the generator sets once they arrive on-site? This is important because rental generator sets range in size from 5 kW to 2,000 kW.  Large generators sets, often called power modules, can measure 8 ft wide by 40 ft long.  If tight quarters are a consideration, you may need several small sets to do the job of one large unit.

• Who will be responsible for getting the rental generator set to your location?  Most generators are towed on semi-trailers or pull trailers.  Others are skid-mounted and require lifting equipment for loading and unloading.  If you’re picking up the generator sets, make sure you have the right size truck and other essential equipment.  Or, shop around to get a fair contract with a trucking firm that can handle the job quickly and efficiently.

• How will you route cable from the generator set outside your building to the electrical distribution boxes inside?  During a planned shutdown, an open door or window will suffice, but during an emergency with extreme weather, this may not be feasible.  Consider installing a weather-head, or cable access door that can be closed when not in use.

• Will you have enough fuel?  Plan to keep extra fuel around if you think you will run your rental generator set for an extended period.  An auxiliary tank of fuel will reduce expenses related to service calls.  More important, however, is the fact that your fuel supplier may not be able to get to you in time during a wide-scale emergency.

• Who will hook up and maintain the equipment?  Find out whether you have people on staff to perform these tasks.  If you don’t, make sure the dealership that supplied the equipment or an electrical contractor can handle these duties.  Or, have an expert walk your staff through the rental generator set hook-up and maintenance procedures as many times as necessary to ensure they will be comfortable with this critical responsibility.

There are many other details to think about when you get down to specifics of renting generator sets.  It’s a good idea to complete a rental power planner to keep all these details on file so that you’re ready when the time comes.

Time is Everything in an Emergency

Because you’ve done a lot of legwork to secure your rental power, it’s advisable to keep it all organized.  The last thing you want to be doing in an emergency power outage is rifling through file cabinets or searching computer files to find the information you need.  Keeping an organized file at home and at the office is another good idea because gaining access to your office may be difficult during emergencies involving severe weather.

Most of all, be prepared.  Your rental generator set file should include a list of telephone numbers of key people you’ll need to communicate with during an emergency (or a planned shut down.)  Make sure you list office and home telephone numbers, as well as those of alternate contacts.

• In-house operations/maintenance staff.

• The person in charge during a power outage (or your second in command.)

• Generator set dealership.

• Fuel supplier.

• Critical load requirements for your facility.

• Prioritized critical loads and their required voltage/amperage.

• Physical locations in the plant and locations of schematic drawings and electrical diagrams.

• Designated loads to be isolated from the main breaker.

Everything to Gain

Solid planning can make the difference between failure and success, in nearly every business situation.  This is especially true when it comes to rental generator set power for your facility.  If you follow these simple steps to planning for temporary power, you can have an invaluable strategy in place in no time.  Or, use ideas listed here to update the existing plan you’ve already filed away.

Remember, it’s a relatively painless process.  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.