Backup Generators
Storage and Backup
Backup generators sized on your real critical load, not on the plant's total demand. That distinction is the difference between equipment that pays for itself and one that starts once a month for nothing.
The right question
A battery bank provides very good backup for minutes and hours, and it also cuts your billable peak every day of the year. A backup generator does not save you a single peso in normal operation, but it sustains your process during a long outage for as long as the fuel lasts.
They answer different questions. The battery solves gapless transfer and cost; the generator solves duration. In many projects the right answer is the combination, and in several the right answer is only one of the two.
What decides it is which loads are critical, how long they must be sustained and what your process tolerates at the instant of transfer. Three questions, and none of them is answered with annual consumption.
Uninterrupted transfer, cutting the billable peak every day, and backup from minutes to hours.
Sustains the critical load during a prolonged outage, as long as there is fuel.
The battery covers the instant and the cost; the generator covers the duration. They are sized together.
If someone quotes you a backup generator without having asked what your critical loads are, they are selling you capacity, not backup.
What a critical load is
Backing up the entire plant costs several times more than backing up what truly cannot stop. The list is made with your process people, not with a catalog.
Half an hour to carry out a safe shutdown is not the same as eight hours to keep producing. It defines the tank and the equipment.
A motor tolerates it; a server and a PLC often do not. That determines whether the transfer needs intermediate storage.
Article 32 of the Electricity Sector Law requires backup in certain cases. If it applies to you, the sizing has conditions that are not optional.
With those four answers and your measured load profile, the sizing follows. Without them, any proposed capacity is a guess with a price tag.
The equipment nobody tests
The most common failure mode of backup equipment is not that it breaks down: it is that nobody knows it is broken. It has gone months without starting under load, the starter battery has sulfated, the fuel has degraded, and that is discovered on the day of the outage.
That is why every generator we deliver comes with its proposed testing program from day one: start under load at a defined frequency, review of the starting and fuel systems, and a record of every test.
Under a reliability contract we carry out those tests and you receive the report. Without a contract we leave them to you in writing, because we would rather someone else does them than nobody.
Start under load at a defined frequency · condition of the starting system and battery · fuel quality and level · transfer actually tested, not simulated · dated record of every test, which is what counts when someone asks.
When it is not for you
If your critical load is small and what you need is minutes of autonomy to carry out a safe shutdown, a properly sized battery bank costs you less and gives you gapless transfer. We are not going to sell you an engine.
If what you want is to lower your bill, a backup generator is not the way: it does not save you a single peso in normal operation. That is what storage is for.
If you already have a generator installed and do not know whether it works, start there. A load test costs a fraction of new equipment and often the answer is that yours is fine.
How we work
Seven-day campaign with a Class A analyzer.
Engineering based on your real load curve.
Supply and installation inside your fence line.
GTO Vigía sustains the result after construction.
Energy solutions
In a short meeting we review your bill with you, on screen, and tell you what is worth measuring.
We work with plants on medium and high voltage. By sending you accept our privacy notice.
Strengths
GTO Energy offers electrical engineering tailored to your plant. Request your diagnostic and start by knowing where the opportunity is.
Seven days with a Class A analyzer at your facility, before quoting.
Engineering, supply and installation inside your fence line.
Fully creditable if you implement. No finding, no charge.
Compliance reports based on RES/550/2021, filed with the CNE and CENACE.
GTO Vigía: monitoring, monthly reporting and priority service.
We service plants installed by others, starting with a condition survey.
