The majority of genset failures are “Failure To Start” error. Much of the time this can be attributed to insufficient fuel. Fuel theft is also a problem for many generators, particularly those at remote site locations which are difficult to monitor and secure. Tank Depth Sensors can be deployed to tackle many of these common issues.

• Monitor fuel level and know when to schedule refilling of the tanks
• Monitoring of fuel level for sudden drops that could indicate leakage or theft
• Graphing and record of fuel usage over time
• Compare fuel usage with fuel delivery billing.

Connect to a single sensor port on your sensorProbe+, securityProbe+ or securityProbe base unit. Alerts can be sent through SNMP, E-mail and SMS (with optional cellular data modem). Remote site locations can be monitored from our central monitoring software AKCPro Server, which includes drill down mapping and customizable desktops to display the data you need.

sensorProbe+ and securityProbe devices are Modbus ready, making a connection with many generator control panels easy via their Modbus RS485 output. Combined with a tank depth sensor it gives you a complete remote site generator monitoring solution.

Fuel Theft
Typical fuel theft is done by inside personnel and amounts to just a few litres per day. In the case of one of our African customers, 10 litres per day was being skimmed from the tank. Typically this would not be easily detected with fuel level monitoring only. However, with the addition of a Modbus connection to the generator, it is possible to have a monthly report of total fuel used by the generator and compare this to total fuel used from the tank as read by the TDPS.

In this case, 10 litres per day equated to 300 litres per month. The generator flow meter stated 400 litres were consumed, the tank depth sensor showed a drop of 680 litres, showing an obvious large difference in the actual fuel used and the fuel remaining in the tank.