Diesel Generator for Hotels

The emergency load of a hotel

A hotel is a building full of people, so the emergency power is a life safety system first. The emergency lighting, the fire pumps and the smoke ventilation, the lifts that serve the fire floors, the kitchen cold rooms, the water and the sewage pumps and the reception and the access control are on the emergency supply. That group is normally 15 to 25 percent of the connected load of the building.

Where the set goes

The plant room inside the building means noise, heat and vibration in the structure, and exhaust air next to the guest rooms. The set is therefore usually placed outside in an acoustic enclosure, close enough to keep the cable run short and far enough for the exhaust to clear the guest rooms and the fresh air intakes. A containerised set next to the plant room is often the cleanest answer for a resort with a large open site.

The noise and the vibration

The guests hear the generator, not the engineer. A silent canopy set with acoustic lining and a discharge silencer brings the noise down to roughly 70 dB(A) at 7 m, the exhaust is ducted up and away from the terraces and the windows, and the whole enclosure stands on anti-vibration mounts on a foundation isolated from the building. In a quiet resort area the noise limit at the property boundary can decide the model, and we design to that number rather than to the catalogue.

The start has to be invisible

The automatic transfer switch detects the failure, the set starts and takes the load within ten seconds, and the lifts and the air conditioning carry on without the guests noticing. The control panel parameters are set for the site and written into the quotation, so the machine arrives on site ready to work.

The fuel and the running hours

Autonomy is quoted from the fuel tank level, as ISO 8528 requires, and 8 to 24 hours at full load is the normal range for a hotel, measured to the level where the transfer pump picks up. Hotels that run the set weekly to keep the fuel moving should have the day tank sized for that, and the service contract should cover the fuel quality, the batteries and the coolant heater.

The kitchen, the cold rooms and the lifts

Three loads decide a hotel set in practice: the kitchen with the cold rooms and the dishwashers, the lifts with their high starting current, and the water pumps. They are included in the connected load and the starting current is added on top, which is where the sizing margin usually goes.

What we deliver

Silent canopy or containerised sets, 50 Hz or 60 Hz, with the ATS, the fuel system, the heaters, the battery charger and the remote monitoring written into the same quotation. Every set is run at full load in the factory before it is loaded, and the test record travels with the machine.