Monitoring of diesel generators in Africa

Nowadays, almost every aspect of our life is electrified. And losing power even for a couple of hours makes us feel like being in the Middle Ages. Meanwhile, many remote areas all over the world are still not connected to the national grid. The good news is there is an effective and cost-saving way to meet high-energy requirements of regions with a poor grid infrastructure: installation of diesel generators. According to GlobalData’s latest report, diesel generators are the most preferred power backup solution and accounted for more than 80% of the global generators market in 2017. 

While the problem with the source of standby power is solved, there is another issue to think of: monitoring and maintenance of diesel generators in remote areas. Let’s see how our partner Afritrack has solved this task in Tanzania with the help of Wialon.

What was the problem?

The customer has a wide network of generators powered by diesel engines for electrifying remote areas in Tanzania. As we know, stability is hard to achieve and preserve, and a constant supply of electricity is not an exception. It’s a huge concern for the companies providing generator maintenance services. In this case only two alternatives are possible: no middle ground, as they say:

• the first one is to expand the staff hiring new employees who will visit every unit on a regular basis to check it up. The problem is that one necessity causes a dozen: more people – more transport – more equipment – more expenses, etc. It’s a chain reaction;

• the second possibility is to develop a new solution for generator monitoring. It would sound great and reasonable, if it wasn’t so expensive both from hardware and software perspective.      
  
  

What was proposed as a solution?

The set task was not easy. Nevertheless, our partner Afritrack could find the third alternative for diesel generator monitoring in Tanzania. They offered a reasonable and fully functioning Wialon-based solution consisting of Sensolator application, tracking devices, and FLS.  

Afritrack installed sensors to measure the level of fuel remained and used traditional tracking devices. After that, they configured Sensolator: now each tab serves as a dashboard for a generator. And finally, our partner added the function of timely notifications.     

What are the results?

There are several parameters that should be monitored with regard to diesel generators: level of fuel, stability of power supply, and regularity of maintenance. The project implemented in Tanzania by our partner allowed to consider all of them. Now with Wialon-based solution dispatchers can receive alarm notifications on time and send employees to check up/repair generators only when it’s really necessary: in case of an extremely low diesel level, unstable power supply or other damages. As a result, the final customer ensures timely check-ups and regular maintenance of diesel generators, savings in the staff time, reasonable distribution of labor, as well as reduction in transport expenses.  

From an integrator’s perspective, the game is worth the candle. Diesel generators are widely used to electrify remote areas all over the world. And all these sources of standby power require timely monitoring and maintenance for proper operation and stable power supply. Monitoring systems offered by the market and unexpected damages can cost a fortune.  So, Wialon-based solution is a great alternative in terms of functionality and price. 

If you got interested or have any questions, just write us at marketing@gurtam.com, and we will connect you with the partner. In case you want to share your story of successful usage of Wialon, feel free to contact us or fill up a form at my.gurtam.com.