Do you have an industrial diesel generator as an emergency backup for your facility? Your hospital, shop, farm or office will benefit from your preparedness if there is a loss of electrical power, but how long can you have it fueled up and waiting before the diesel fuel goes bad?
Modern diesel fuel isn’t designed for long term storage, it’s optimized to burn clean. However, it does present some potential problems for your generator.
Despite advancements in clean-burning fuels, the diesel fuels of the day tend to degrade faster than ever before. Years ago, diesel had a much higher sulfur content. Sulfur acted as a preservative for fuel and helped shelf life. As time went on, they reduced the amount of sulfur allowed to be less than 15ppm. In addition to that change, many areas started to allow a certain amount of biodiesel to allowed in fuel while not having to inform consumers. Biodiesel degrades faster than regular diesel. The combination of the removal of sulfur and the addition of biodiesel has been relatively unnoticed by the average consumer, who regularly burns through their tanks. However, those who store diesel have probably noticed it doesn’t fare well on its own.
Modern diesel begins deteriorating almost immediately like perishable food products do, but there are ways to ensure that your fuels stay clean and stable for a much longer period of time!
To ensure that you get the longest possible storage life for your generator’s diesel fuel, make sure that you are checking with your provider about sampling programs. Many of the issues we test for are not visible to the naked eye or are underneath a ton of product.
Ask us about reputable fuel stabilizers and additives. Senergy’s Clean Fluid Solutions can be a preventative program. However, in most cases, it is reactive in that we spend a lot of our time polishing fuel, cleaning tanks, and getting people back to where they should be!
If having a backup generator is important to your business, let us help ensure that your generators are clean and ready to run when the chips are down. Learn More here.
