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Generator and Standby Power Monitoring
A generator passing its monthly test does not mean it will start during an outage. In the four weeks in between, the battery weakens, fuel goes missing, and the panel switch gets left in manual.
A generator proves its worth on the day it fails
A standby generator does nothing for 8,700 hours a year. It earns its cost in the few minutes when the mains goes down. If it fails to start then, all that remains is a folder of monthly tests, every one of them marked “passed”.
Because a test and an outage are not the same event. In a test the machine is warm, an engineer is standing next to it, and the load is light. In an outage the machine has been sitting for four weeks and at least one of these questions has no answer:
- Is the battery still holding voltage?
- How much fuel is in the tank, and how many hours does that buy?
- Is the panel switch in AUTO, or was it left in manual after the last service?
- Is the block heater working, or is the engine cold?
- Has communication with the controller quietly dropped?
Those answers are needed before the outage, not during it.
The gap nobody measures
The monthly test is a snapshot. It tells you the machine was ready on the day an engineer stood in front of it — and says nothing about the twenty-nine days that follow.
We close that gap by asking one question continuously: if the mains failed right now, would this machine take the load? Every condition that would stop it is tracked on its own:
- Communication lost — no data from the controller; the machine’s state is unknown
- Fuel low — below threshold, with the estimated hours remaining
- Battery weak — voltage below threshold, cranking at risk
- Not in AUTO — the panel switch has been left in manual
- Engine cold — block heater not drawing (checked only while the machine is stopped)
- Service or test overdue — the schedule has slipped
And when it does happen, what actually occurred
The other half is the record. When an outage arrives, the platform captures what the machine did: failed to start, stopped early, or took the load late — with the cause where one can be determined.
Put together, the two halves form a chain of evidence: “we raised this on that date, it was not addressed, and the machine did not start.” That is the thing that changes which side loses the argument about maintenance budgets.
What we measure, and from where
Measurement plate
- Electrical
- V · A · Hz · kW
- Generator output and mains side
- Engine
- rpm · bar · °C
- Speed, oil pressure, coolant, oil temperature
- Battery
- V
- Battery voltage and charge alternator
- Fuel
- % · L
- Tank level · converted with the tank curve
- ATS and mode
- state
- Transfer position and controller mode
- Pre-heat
- kW · °C
- Block heater state and consumption
- Run period
- kWh · L
- Derived · outages and tests counted separately
Data is read from the controller: Deep Sea, ComAp or Datakom panels over RS485, carried to the platform by the site gateway. The manufacturer’s own cloud is not used — the data stays in your system.
Fuel: the quietest loss on site
Generator fuel disappears in two directions, and both can run for months unnoticed.
Short deliveries. The docket says 650 litres; the tank level rises by the equivalent of 600. Fifty litres, repeated at every delivery, becomes a serious figure over a year. The platform detects the delivery itself from the step in tank level, compares it against the docket you enter, and returns a verdict: matched, short delivery, delivery without a docket, or docket without a delivery.
Siphoning. The reverse costs nothing to check: if the tank level falls while the generator is stopped, something other than evaporation is at work.
One detail about tolerance. The acceptance limit is not “±3% or ±50 litres” — it is whichever is smaller. Take the larger and a 50-litre shortfall on a 650-litre docket reads as “matched”, which is precisely the case you were trying to catch.
Every test becomes a document
A completed scheduled test produces a PDF report and files itself: duration, maximum coolant temperature, minimum battery voltage, average frequency. Nobody writes it, so nobody forgets to write it.
That archive is not just record-keeping. It is the document an insurer asks for, an auditor expects, and a tenant agreement obliges you to hold.
What an outage actually costs
For every run period the platform calculates the kWh generated, the fuel burned, the cost and the CO₂. Here we have to be straight with you.
A generator is both expensive and carbon-heavy. The same kWh drawn from the grid would have cost less and emitted less. We are not going to invert that comparison and dress standby generation up as green. What the figure actually says is simpler: outages are expensive — and knowing the cost is what builds the case for the investment that reduces them.
The provenance is labelled too. Whether the fuel quantity came from a measured level difference or was estimated from the datasheet curve is stated on the screen. Unit price is taken only from a docket; with no docket, no cost is shown. A cost built on an invented price is worse than no cost at all.
Two efficiency signals are also tracked: a specific consumption (litres per kWh) that climbs over time points to a service need, and long running below 30% load points to wet stacking.
Common questions
Our generator already has remote monitoring. What would change?
Controller vendors' cloud services watch the machine, not the site. The kWh the generator produced and the energy the site consumed, the cost of the outage and the electricity bill, the test schedule and the maintenance plan — none of those sit in the same place. We read the controller over RS485 and bring the data into your system, with no dependency on the vendor's cloud.
Is starting a test remotely safe?
A remote command is only possible when three conditions hold together: the panel switch is in REMOTE, the transfer interlock is engaged, and the command permission is configured. If any one is missing the button does nothing. Every command is written to the audit trail: who, when, which machine. If you would rather not have it at all, remote commands can be disabled entirely and the module simply monitors.
Who writes the test reports?
The system does. When a scheduled test completes, a PDF is produced with the measurement summary and filed automatically. Nothing is typed by hand, so "we forgot to write it up" cannot happen. On partner installations the report carries the partner's logo.
Are our UPS units covered as well?
Yes, in the same module. The outage story is one story: the UPS bridges the gap, the generator takes over. On the UPS side the figure that matters is battery age — measured against expected life, with a warning once it passes the threshold. If no replacement date has been entered, no verdict is given; a battery is never assumed to be new.
Is the data in your screenshots real?
The module's data model, configuration screens and monthly report are live, but controller integration is not yet complete, so this page carries no panel screenshots — only a schematic. In a real installation the figures come from your machines. We settle the installation timetable during the call.
Let us measure what is happening on your site.
In a one-hour call we look at your existing setup and set out exactly which measurement points are needed and what you would be able to see.