Contaminated diesel fuel poses a serious risk in standby generators

By Ron Mattig

While standby generators are the most effective form of providing power in the event of outages or load shedding, one of the most neglected, but essential elements of generator operations, is ensuring that the diesel fuel in the standby tanks is uncontaminated.

It's a known fact that in South Africa, the quality of diesel fuel is questionable at best, but the situation with standby generators is exacerbated because of their infrequent usage. Standard maintenance procedures generally exclude testing and resolving fuel integrity, yet fuel is the root cause of most genset failures.

Statistics have shown that 85% of engine failures in gensets are fuel related.

Diesel, like mil, deteriorates over time, forming bacteria and sludge, which poses a severe risk to a reliable operation. This sludge results in plugged filters and fuel system damage, ultimately leading to engine failure.

This is especially the case with new generation engines, its precision injectors and pumps demand high quality fuel to run these engines, as the manufacturer intended. Anything less is guaranteed to cuase premature failure.

Once a contaminanat accumulates in the tank, it will continue to pollute the fuel that passes through it. In the past, tank cleaning was a generally neglected maintenance item. It was only attended to in extreme circumstances due to the cost, waste factor and down time that accompanied this procedure.

"All these factors are exacerbated with gensets because they stand idle for long periods of time meaning that the diesel deteriorates faster than frequently used engines making them more vulnerable to failure," explains Ron Mattig, MD at Clear Fuel Technologies and fellow SAIEE Member.

His recent presentation to members of the Durban Branch of the SAIEE on maintaining and monitoring fuel quality in stand-by environments was, according to those who attended, indeed an eye opener. HIs company supplies the range of Algae-X Fuel Conditioning and Decontamination Technology which has been delivering solutions to cmbat poor quality fuel for more than 11 years in Southern Africa, through a netowrk of approved distributors.

It offers a complete range of products and services including a mobile diesel tank cleaning and sampling service. They bring the mobile tank cleaning equipment on site to determine the quality of the fuel, and if required, carry out a tank cleaning service. This is a cost effective, simple procedure, without any of the previously mentioned negatives.

The process doesn't only involve the extraction of water and ebris, which is currently offered in the market, but it also includes the additional vital requirements of comprehensive fuel and environment remediation. These comprise:

• Removal of tank bottom/free water, debris and solid contaminants.
• Removal of bio-film build up (accumulation on tank walls and if applicable, baffles/supports).
• Removal of entrained, and more importantly, emulsified water.
• Elimination of all microbe/bacterial growth and foreign activity from the entire fuel environment, without the use of toxic biocides (not just the visible microbe components on the water interface).
• Remediate the actual fuel integrity, bu reversing the natural and accelerated deterioration process that occurs in diesel fuel.

In addition to this service, a range of maintenance and monitoring systems are offered, which continually maintaing and monitor quality of fuel in the tanks. In the event of severe contaminant levels being detected, an alarm is triggered, thus allowing for a pro-active response. Systems are available to handle tank sizes from 100 litres to 1,000,000 litres.

In closing his presentation, Mattig made the following analogy: As with people who require clean, contaminant-free water to survive, diesel engiens require clean diesel to perform as their manufacturers designed them to.