POWER July 2014 - 45

DISTRIBUTED GENERATION
past, temporary power mainly constituted
'mobile' power, which was required to be
made available quickly and for very short duration.
Today temporary power also includes
long-term requirements by utilities whose
capital constraints make investment in permanent
sources of energy difficult. "
Renting vs. Building
There's no question that when speed is of the
utmost importance, temporary power has the
edge even over relatively easy to site, permit,
and construct gas-fired peakers. In an interview
with Utilities-me.com last October,
Altaaqa Managing Director Steven Meyrick
noted that it took 23 days from contract to
plant commissioning at Aden, Yemen-reportedly
the fastest installation of a temporary
power plant in Yemen. Another project-a
24-MW temporary peaking power plant including
district cooling for the Sultanate of
Oman-took four days to complete.
Even when new capacity isn't needed
on very short notice, power rental offers an
advantage to utilities worldwide. Cummins'
Duncan noted: " Utilities typically leverage
temporary power in a couple of different
ways. Many leverage temporary power
where they have a significant gap between
supply and demand, typically while they
are investing in expanding grid capacity or
to supplement existing capacity if they are
capital constrained. There are also utilities,
particularly in the Middle East, who leverage
temporary power to address seasonal shifts in
demand, effectively acting as additional capacity
during peak periods. "
Compared with building new grid-connected
generation-even distributed solar or
wind generation-renting power (and, often,
distribution infrastructure) offers far faster
deployment. It also eliminates maintenance
headaches. As Keddis noted, even when grid
power isn't an option over a longer term,
customers may opt to continue renting rather
than purchasing the power supply because
they can count on a specialized provider to
handle operation and maintenance.
Venkie Shantaram, Aggreko's group business
development director, also noted that
global mobile power providers are selling not
just power but also reliable operation: " One
day a generator can be found at a cement
factory in the United Arab Emirates having
to withstand 50C-plus heat, and the next the
same generator is providing power to a gas
production plant in Russia's Arctic region, "
so providing consistently reliable power despite
the environment is critical.
But what about costs of power compared
with power from traditional fossil plants? As
with permanent generation sources, costs vary
not only by country and region but also in response
to fuel costs, regulatory environment,
size of installation, and other factors. But, according
to GE's Dan Kempf, general manager,
LM2500 and Small GT Program, as with all
onsite generation, line losses, up to 5%, are
saved, so " [t]his can result in the temporary
power units having a higher overall efficiency
than centralized/remote power generation. "
And in many cases, cost comparison is
moot, because, as Shantaram noted: " The
consequences of power interruptions for
utility-related companies responsible for the
timely delivery of electricity could run into
millions of dollars' worth of penalties in a
very short amount of time, with no respite
until the disruption is fixed. At the end of the
day, our customers' main concern is having
access to guaranteed reliable power so that
they can get on with the task at hand, be that
repair of onsite permanent equipment, refurbishment,
replacement, or new builds. "
An Expanding Market
According to an April power rental marBIOMASS
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POWER July 2014

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