Installation · relocation · commissioning
Generator installation & commissioning
Most generator problems that appear in the first year were built into the installation. The set was fine; the plant room could not get rid of the hot air, or the exhaust was too long, or the panel had never been proved against a real mains failure.
Being clear at the start saves a fortnight later
Where our scope starts and stops
Generator installation always sits across two trades. Where the job is part of a project with a consultant, an FM provider or a main contractor, we work to the specification you hold — and where there is no specification, we tell you what the installation needs before it needs it, rather than after.
Ours
The set and its commissioning
- Positioning, levelling and anti-vibration mounts
- Exhaust system and silencer
- Fuel system and day tank
- Cooling airflow and discharge
- Batteries and charging
- The genset control panel
- The testing that proves the set works
A licensed electrical contractor's
The building side
- Incoming and outgoing cabling to the main switchboard
- The building's protection and discrimination
- The earthing system
- Authority-facing electrical approvals
- We work to their design and with them on the interface — and we will say plainly where a proposed arrangement will cause trouble
Three different jobs
New, replacement, or shifting
New installation
A set going into a plant room, rooftop, outdoor compound or acoustic enclosure for the first time. The work is dominated by the things around the set: air in, air out, exhaust route, fuel route, and access for future service.
Replacement
A set going into an existing position. Cheaper, because the foundation, exhaust route and cable route already exist — provided the new set's airflow, exhaust back pressure and weight actually suit what is there. Checking that before ordering rather than after is the whole value of the survey.
Shifting
Moving a working set: isolation and drain-down, disconnection, rigging and lifting, transport, re-siting, reconnection and full recommissioning. A relocated set is commissioned as though it were new, because it is now in a different building with different air, a different exhaust run and a different load.
Site survey, first
Position, access route for delivery and for the eventual overhaul, floor loading, plant room volume, ventilation openings, exhaust route and termination, fuel supply and storage, cable route, and noise constraints against the neighbours.
The four things that decide whether it lasts
What an installation actually involves
Foundation & mounting
- A level base able to carry the wet weight of the set
- Anti-vibration mounts specified for that set rather than whatever is in the store
- Vibration not isolated at the base ends up in the building structure, the exhaust joints and the fuel pipework
Cooling airflow
- The item that decides whether the set survives a Sharjah August
- Free area at inlet and outlet louvres; discharge ducted away from the intake; no short-circuit path
- No restriction the radiator fan was never designed to push against
- Get it wrong and the plant room recirculates its own hot air, the set derates, and it eventually trips on high temperature under exactly the load it was bought for — see radiator and cooling repair
Exhaust
- Correct pipe size, the shortest practical route, proper support, a flexible connection at the engine
- Thermal insulation where people can touch it, or where heat would soak into the plant room
- Drainage for condensate, and a termination that does not push exhaust back into the air intake or at the building next door
- Excess back pressure costs power and raises exhaust temperature — a slow way to damage a turbocharger
Fuel & control
- Base tank or day tank, transfer arrangement, correct suction and return routing, venting, bunding where required
- A tank that can actually be drained and cleaned. Fuel installed badly is the fault we are called back to most often — see fuel system service and tank cleaning
- Battery, charger, engine and alternator wiring, controller configuration
- The mains-failure arrangement — see AMF and ATS panel repair and testing
Not "we started it and it ran"
Commissioning: what actually gets proved
A sequence of tests, each with a recorded result. It is the part of the job most often skipped.
- Pre-start checksFluid levels and specifications, fuel primed and leak-free, coolant filled and vented, battery and charger, fastener checks, guards, signage, and the alignment and condition of everything installed.
- First start and off-load runSpeed, voltage on all phases, phase rotation, frequency, oil pressure, coolant temperature, charging voltage, leaks, exhaust condition.
- Protection and shutdown testingLow oil pressure, high coolant temperature, overspeed, emergency stop, and the engine and alternator protection actually configured on the controller — each proved, not assumed.
- Mains-failure simulationThe mains are dropped and the set must detect it, start, accept the load and transfer within its configured timings, then return the load and shut down correctly on restoration. This is the test that answers the only question the building owner has.
- Load acceptance and load testingLoad applied in steps, with the transient voltage and frequency dip on application, the recovery, and the steady-state readings recorded. ISO 8528-5 defines performance classes for exactly this, and where your specification names one the test is run and reported against it. With no building load available yet, or a criterion written in kVA at a lagging power factor, that means a load bank test.
- Temperature soakThe set run long enough at load to prove the cooling installation in real ambient conditions, not for five minutes on a cool morning.
- Noise and vibration checkAgainst whatever constraint the site is under.
- More than one set?
They also have to be brought into step with one another and made to share load properly before any of the above means much — see synchronisation and paralleling.
- After the handover
A commissioned set needs its first service at the running-in interval and a regime after that, and standby sets need proving on load periodically rather than only started off-load.
- On sets we did not install too
Scheduled maintenance and AMC cover is offered either way, and the enquiry starts with the site rather than with a tier.
You should end holding a document, not a handshake
The handover pack
What the next engineer — ours or anyone else's — will need in three years, and what an auditor, an insurer or an incoming FM provider will ask to see.
- The commissioning record — every test above, with the readings taken and the result
- The load test report, with readings at each load step
- Controller configuration as left, including timings, setpoints and protection settings
- The as-installed arrangement: exhaust route, fuel route, ventilation provision, cable entry
- Equipment details and serial numbers for the engine, alternator, controller and panel
- The maintenance schedule that applies to that engine, and the date the first service falls due
- Operating and emergency-stop instructions for site staff, and a short handover walk-through
- A contact route for a fault, with the set's details already on file
Common questions
Installation, answered
Can you move an existing generator to a new location?
Yes — generator shifting is regular work. Isolation, drain-down, disconnection, rigging, transport, re-siting and full recommissioning at the new position. The part people underestimate is the recommissioning: a set that ran perfectly in its old plant room is now in different air, on a different exhaust run and on a different load, and it has to be proved again.
Do you supply the generator as well as install it?
We are a repair workshop rather than a dealer. Where a reconditioned set is the right answer we can discuss what is available — see used and reconditioned generators. Where you are buying new, we will install and commission the set you have bought and give you an honest view of whether it suits the position you are putting it in.
Do you handle the electrical connection and authority approvals?
The building's cabling, protection, earthing and authority-facing electrical approvals are a licensed electrical contractor's scope, and we work alongside them rather than in place of them. We take the set, its panel, its mechanical installation and its commissioning, and we support the approval process with the test records and documentation it requires.
How long does an installation take?
It depends far more on the site than on the set — plant room readiness, access for the lift, the exhaust route, whether the fuel supply exists, and whether the electrical contractor is ready to terminate. We give a programme after the site survey rather than before, and we tell you which items sit on the critical path so they can be chased.
What proves the installation is right?
The commissioning record and the load test. Anyone can start a generator. The document that matters shows it detected a mains failure, started, took load in steps, held voltage and frequency while doing it, and shut down safely when it was supposed to.
Book a site survey
Send the set details, the location, and photographs of the position — the plant room or compound, the ventilation openings, the exhaust route and the access for the lift. A survey answers questions no amount of correspondence can.