INTERVIEW


Generator Sets: Evolving for a New Generation


While energy storage is starting to become an option for


some users, these are usually domestic or other light users of electricity, who may have enough electrical energy stored to see through short outages, explains Paul Creighton, the newly-appointed Managing Director of FG Wilson. Where you have a facility which requires substantial electric power, like a data centre or hospital, current renewable and energy storage technology is not sufficiently well-developed to be a commercially viable option for standby power. For guaranteed continuity of power, you still need a generator set, he says.


industry, he knows and understands the industry very well. “The market for generator sets is a


P


crowded and unforgiving place,” he explains. As a way of providing guaranteed electric


power, generator sets have been around for a long time and the simple economics of securing the power supply mean that they are a strong consideration for many people. FG Wilson have been around for more than 50 years, installing more than 625,000


aul Creighton is the newly-appointed Managing Director of FG Wilson. With around 30 years of commercial and product background in the


generator sets since 1990 (as far back as their computer records can search). Paul can see why they are a popular choice: “When it comes to guaranteeing standby or emergency electrical power, in terms of cost, flexibility & responsiveness, for many people, the best option is a generator set.” Diesel engines are the most common


prime mover for generator sets and the reasons have always been practical: compared with other engines, they are more economical to run, typically easier to service and maintain, fuel is safer to store and transport than petrol or gas fuel and engines are durable. Because the engines operate


“For FG Wilson


products today, the


watchwords which design


engineers l ive by are


customer operational


efficiency and keeping


customer operating costs low.


That means long service intervals on


some popular small


models.” 20


at relatively low RPM in power generation applications, they can expect a long working life, if looked after and in countries where usage is high, examples of generator sets with 30,000 operating hours are not uncommon. The basic technology in a generator set today remains very similar to what it has always been: FG Wilson can point to a seventy-year-old 50kVA generator set on display in one of their factories which wouldn’t look out of place on a customer site today. However, as Paul notes “What has


changed is the efficiency of the generator sets you see now. The seventy-year-old 50kVA generator set is about the same size as a 250 – 300kVA generator set today.” That big reduction in size, in other words


the improvement in power density, has meant a corresponding reduction in fuel consumption and in emissions from generator sets, with emissions further reduced by new engine technology.


SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2018 UK POwER NEwS


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