ENERGY STORAGE, STANDBY POWER & UPS
How standby power is evolving in step with carbon reductions Kelly Cole, General Manager for Finning UK & Ireland’s energy and transportation division and exclusive dealer for Cat engines and generators, provides an insight into what’s been ongoing for some time across the supply chain, with options both for the here and now and for the years to come. tandby power generation plays a critical role across many different applications, in the instance of a mains outage or unpredictable supply – such as keeping vital hospital equipment functioning, maintaining operations at utility plants and ensuring data centres stay online. At present, the most common fuels used in backup generators are gas and diesel. So, although much discussion on the energy transition is focused on how we move away from the use of fossil fuels for mains power, if we are to truly achieve net zero carbon then the industry needs to ensure that standby power can also be produced through low and, ultimately, carbon-free means.
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16 Electrical Review | July / August 2022
Ensuring reliability Current reliance on diesel generators for standby power is well established, primarily because of their practical benefits. They are readily available, reliable as a mature technology and able to quickly ramp up to seamlessly cover issues with mains power supplies. Given that high-profile standby power users, such as hospitals and data centres, must mitigate any risks that may be posed to maintaining mission critical services, the advantages in terms of reliability that existing technology offers must be carefully considered as we transition away from fossil fuels. Indeed, in these understandably risk-averse sectors we are likely to see a phased transition to a balance between maintaining the
