Supporting Site Standby Generators

August 2009

Telco and Wireless Carrier server providers require continuity of services when power is interrupted at their sites. It is imperative these sites have backup power generation.

Standby power generators are critical to site operations. They provide power to the site in the event of the loss of commercial power. Ensuring the generators will start and operate when needed, plus the automatic transfer and running under load are part of most companies’ weekly maintenance routines. Generators are exercised on a regular basis to test their ability to provide power at a time of need.

Generators are a double-edged sword; they are absolutely needed to ensure continuity of service, but they are not green. In fact, most municipalities require the licensing of these standby generators and limit the amount of time a generator can run. Run time reports are the responsibility of the operator and are required by the municipality (and usually, the EPA) on a regular basis.

Generally, exercising the site generators is automatic. Generators start and stop at pre-defined times set at every site. When the generator starts and stops, generator alarms are sent to an alarm manager when the generator runs and also when it stops running. With this information. your technicians can look through the report, determine if the generator started and if it did, the technician can calculate based on the information received, filling out the reports.

What happens if you have hundreds of sites where the generators are exercised on a weekly basis? What happens if one generator fails to start; how would you know? This can be a full time job going through these reports pulling the data to determine if a generator didn’t run and if so, making calculations used to fill out the mandatory reports.

How much time would it save (directly an operational cost savings) if the management system you used did this for you? SchoRen TrapServertm supports Generator Reporting!

TrapServer provides Generator Ran, Generator Did Not Run, Generator Took Load and Generator Did Not Take Load reports.

• Generator Ran Report - This report has the start time and stop time indicating generator operation and the report will report on a generator that ran multiple times AND indicate the start and stop time of each run.
  
  
• ∙ Generator Did Not Run Report - Report is a great tool for understanding which generators did not get exercised.
  

Part of the exercise of standby power system is the ability to automatically transfer to the load once the generator completes its startup routine. This is as important to a site operator as generator running. If a generator does not switch to a load and continues generating, it won’t support standby operation and won’t be available when it is needed.

• Generator Took Load Report - Indicates automatic transfer switch operated and generator was able to maintain generation under load conditions.
  
  
• Generator Did Not Take Load Report - This valuable report enable operators to determine which generators that were exercised would not operate once load was applied.
  

Operations within one organization will vary when compared to another at another company. As a result of this diversity, variations to reports can be added to include:

• Estimated Generator Fuel Level Remaining
• Estimated Run-Time Remaining
• Generator Exceeded Run Time
• Generator Did Not Meet Run Time
  

TrapServer monitors and controls Multi-Vendor equipment at a single operating company rapidly informing users where troubles exist in the monitored network. TrapServer uses open and proprietary industry standard protocols to gather alarm events for alarm management. We have extensive knowledge building and implementing many custom alarming solutions.

SchoRen NMS Solutions, LLC provides Network Management Solutions as TrapServer and TrapServer SNMP Message Translator (SMT) to Service Providers, Telecommunications Providers and Companies that operate a public or private communications infrastructure.

If you are concerned about the QoS of your network, SchoRen is your system!