Rental Power Planner
Electricity is never more scarce and precious than after a disaster. Lights are out, telephones disabled, businesses shut down. People may need food, water, heat, and medical attention. There can be no real recovery without power, yet no one can predict when utility service will come back.
Our Easy, Three-Step Approach
Although critical, planning for power doesn’t need to be difficult. Here are three simple steps that will help you secure and maintain the rental power necessary to carry your facility successfully through a scheduled or emergency shutdown:
1. DETERMINE YOUR FACILITY’S ELECTRICAL LOAD
2. KNOW WHERE TO RENT GENERATOR SETS AND RELATED EQUIPMENT
3. ANSWER THE BASICS, SAVE TIME AND MONEY
Before you rent temporary power, you have to know how much you need.
FULL POWER
If you have to keep your whole facility operating as it would with utility-supplied power, you need to determine your aggregate electrical load.
The quickest, easiest, and most accurate way to do this is to take ammeter readings of your electrical distribution boxes. Take the reading when your company is normally operating at peak load. You may also be able to obtain peak demand readings from your utility bills.
Aggregate loads are also listed on panels of electrical distribution boxes.
PRIORITY POWER
At times, you may want to power only those electrical loads that serve critical functions at your facility. If so, you need to prioritize individual loads.
If you’re not sure what your critical loads are, start by determining the lost profit or other problems that result if your company is without the equipment. Other than life-safety electrical loads powered by your standby generator sets as required by law, examples of critical loads include:
- Lights
- Heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC)
- Computers
- Process Equipment
- Pumps
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 onsite during a large-scale emergency, such as a natural disaster.
In most buildings, a separate distribution box will feed critical loads. In this case, you may only need enough temporary power for the loads served by that set of circuit breakers.
You can also decide to power specific critical loads served by separate circuit breakers within a distribution box. To do so, take an ammeter reading of the distribution box during the off-hours at your facility with the equipment you don’t need shut off and the critical loads on. The ammeter will tell you how much power you need to serve the critical loads since that is all the distribution box is feeding. However, it’s important that the non-critical loads are shut off and kept off when rental power is hooked up.
If you want to power individual pieces of equipment that use motors, amperage and voltage information is listed on nameplates. You can list this information and all your power needs on the downloadable worksheet on this page.
An additional note: Rental power is often used to back up standby gensets during scheduled and emergency outages. To find out how much temporary power you need for standby service, contact the company that supplied the standby generator or a qualified rental generator set dealership.
KEY GENERATOR SET FEATURES TO SPECIFY:
Your local Cat dealer has many kinds of Cat Rental Power gensets and features to choose from.
Here are a few you should consider:
- Sound-attenuation: You’ll need quiet gensets, called sound-attenuated units, if your facility is close to homes or other businesses.
- Auto start/stop connections: This is a critical feature if you are using the rental gensets to back up permanent standby units. Auto start/stop will automatically start a rental generator if a standby unit goes down.
- Distribution panel labeling: This helps inexperienced operators safely identify output voltages.
- Radiator, exhaust discharge: Some gensets feature vertical radiator and exhaust systems to direct heat and exhaust gases up and away from people and buildings. These features are important in populated or high-traffic areas.
- Electronic governors: Specify these if you have critical loads that cannot tolerate fluctuations in electrical frequency. Examples include computers, motor-driven equipment, and other machines backed up by Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems.
- Output bus bars: Bus bars should be spaced to allow for multiple output cable hookup. This lets you run several pieces of equipment off one rental genset.
- Fuel capacity: Check the fuel capacity and consumption rate to determine how many tanks of fuel will get you through your rental period. Gensets should operate at least eight hours without refueling.
- Fuel priming pump: This ensures easier starts after transport.
- Charging alternator: This ensures batteries are charging when units are operating. Note: An outside power source is required for standby gensets if the unit is equipped with battery chargers and/or space heaters and jacket water heaters.
- Sight gauges: Properly positioned sight gauges for fuel and other critical fluids speed up spot-checking, letting your staff spend more time on other matters.
- Security: Gensets should be virtually tamperproof. Look for lockable doors, oil/water drains mounted inside enclosure, and hidden exterior fuel drains. All connections, such as output bus bars, should be covered.
PLANNING IN CONTEXT
Arranging for equipment is only the first step in emergency power planning. The true test of a plan is how well it functions in practice. A power outage alone can create major logistical challenges as public agencies and businesses rush to provide temporary power.
For example, an outage affecting a large area can require the shipment of hundreds or even thousands of rental gensets within days. The challenges multiply after a natural disaster, as delivery of power must coordinate with the distribution of many necessities such as medical supplies, food, clothing, household goods, and building materials.
An effective plan assigns priorities to all major goods and services and their delivery. In a world that increasingly depends on electricity, a strong argument can be made for giving top priority to rental power. The sooner power is installed, the more efficiently all other materials and services can be delivered. Emergency planners must ensure that power for all purposes – public and private – arrives where it is needed and as quickly as possible.
Not all barriers are physical. For international shipments, slowdowns in customs can significantly delay delivery of power. Planners should consider proposing special legislation to allow generator sets to be imported in emergencies. Provisions allowing temporary, duty-free imports of equipment can greatly expedite delivery. Contracts established with freight companies during the planning phase may increase the availability of ships or air transport when a disaster occurs.
Finances are another stumbling block to be avoided. As part of planning, emergency management agencies should agree on payment terms with rental power suppliers. This may include issuing a letter of credit from a financial institution or budgeting the necessary funds.
FINE-TUNING THE PLAN
An emergency plan is a living document. It should be revisited and updated regularly.
It is wise to test your plan by involving the local electric utility in simulation drills. During an actual emergency, coordination between utility staff and emergency personnel can improve the use of rental equipment.
Disasters are unpredictable and even the best plan will not eliminate the need for good judgment and resourcefulness.
However, a solid plan immediately moves disaster recovery several steps forward. It makes critical actions easier and provides a basis for sound decision making as the event unfolds.