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The Demand for Generators by Industries in Gauteng Remains High

Perhaps even more so than those who live and work in the other eight provinces of South Africa, the homeowners, business owners, and industrialists who, together, make up the population of Gauteng, the nation’s smallest province, are very familiar with the disruption that accompanies a power outage. It is an event that has become increasingly frequent in recent years, as a direct result of the inadequate and ailing generation and distribution infrastructure, operated by the national service provider.

It is not surprising that backup and emergency generators have become a common feature of life in Gauteng. As the nation’s main centre of manufacturing, and home to almost a quarter of its people, the impact of outages, whether accidental or scheduled by the parastatal, is often far-reaching and, in the absence of a suitable coping mechanism, these events could lead to economic disaster.

To ensure that individual areas are not left without power for too long, while attempting to ensure that the needs of the industry are met as fully as possible, a programme of load shedding was introduced. This, in turn, sparked the initial all-round increase in the usual demand for generators, which is still evident in Gauteng today.

Not only has the demand increased in the industrial areas of cities like Johannesburg and Pretoria, but the residents of their leafy suburbs are keen to avoid spending their evenings in darkness in front of a blank TV screen, especially with the winter cold now nipping at their ears.

A relatively modest investment should be enough to procure a petrol-driven unit with the capacity to preserve frozen food, power some lights, ensure you do not miss your favourite TV series, and recharging any laptops, tablets, and mobile phones you may have. However, when it comes to meeting the needs of a typical manufacturing plant in Gauteng, one or more large diesel generators will almost certainly prove necessary.

While many of the region’s larger industrial operations have always depended on these machines to contribute to their supply of electricity, the extent to which they are required to do so varies. In industries, such as construction, agriculture, and mining, the need arises when the operational areas are beyond the reach of the national grid. Under these circumstances, several machines may be necessary. Each machine is dedicated to a specific area of responsibility, ranging from powering heavy machinery and dewatering pumps, to providing power to the kitchens and hostel accommodations that cater for travelling workers.

By contrast, in Gauteng, the role of generators is often to provide some additional power on those occasions when the mains supply alone is insufficient to cope with the load demand at times of peak activity.

To be effective, and to ensure that there is no sudden surge of power that could cause damage to equipment, both the phasing in of auxiliary power and the transition between mains and emergency backup power must be smooth, with no dips or spikes in the output. While this can be achieved manually by a suitably skilled and experienced operator, it is both quicker and safer when the transitions are automated by means of a programmable process control panel. In Gauteng, most of the generators that are intended for industrial use will include a programmable control panel.

Although the diesel-powered units are both durable and powerful, they also tend to be quite noisy, and their exhaust fumes are a source of pollution in the form of toxic nitrogen oxides. To overcome these problems, some of the manufacturing plants in the regions are now relying on units, powered by natural gas, instead.

Regardless of their size and the fuel they used, efficient generators are indispensable to many businesses in Gauteng. PacB Group is a preferred supplier of these vital machines to industrial, commercial, and domestic users in the region.