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Keeping your business online all the time “The costs of losing electric power are almost unthinkable for many businesses now,” says Ann Brown, managing director of FG Wilson
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G Wilson has been around long enough, more than 50 years, to see a transformation in how customers use electric power today. “There’s always been a need for reliable power for critical applications,” says Brown, “but now there’s an even greater edge to it and much of this is driven by increasing reliance on digital technology. Fifteen or twenty years ago, businesses which lost electric power probably had a back-up plan to work with pen and paper. But today, when power is lost, everything else stops with it. Particularly for businesses which operate data centres either for themselves or for others, the costs of going offline due to power outages are colossal.” That means for many businesses, the tried and tested generator set has a place. Ann says, “There are many ways to store or produce energy but when it comes to guaranteeing standby or emergency electrical power, in terms of cost,
No better option than a generator set flexibility and responsiveness, there’s really no better option than a generator set.” Now among a handful of global generator set brands, just over 50 years ago, FG Wilson was a small engineering company in Northern Ireland, owned and managed by its founder Fred Wilson. Then came the energy crisis of the early 1970s. Electrical Review | March 2018
Turbulence in the Middle East led to restrictions in the supply of oil and higher prices which created huge transport and power infrastructure problems in many Western economies. With electricity rationed in the UK, Fred saw an opportunity. He chartered planes and flew in electricity generator sets from the US, auctioning them from a warehouse near Heathrow Airport. A booming global export business followed and FG Wilson quickly found itself on a steep growth curve as Wilson began manufacturing himself. Today, FG Wilson manufactures generator sets powered by diesel or gas engines with power ratings from 6.8 – 2,500 kVA for small to very large businesses. Some customers can walk into a dealership and drive away with a ready-to-run generator set, while for others it’s a major project. That means working with consultants on load requirements, finding the right