Ger­mano Indus­trie Elet­triche relies on Perkins engines sup­plied by BU Pow­er Sys­tems for reli­able island pow­er generation

Reli­able pow­er gen­er­a­tion for an inde­pen­dent island grid

Locat­ed in the Adri­at­ic Sea, approx­i­mate­ly 22 kilo­me­tres off the Gargano Penin­su­la on Italy’s east coast, the Trem­i­ti Islands form a small arch­i­pel­ago with a ful­ly inde­pen­dent pow­er gen­er­a­tion infrastructure.

Since 1960, Ger­mano Indus­trie Elet­triche Srl (GIE) has been respon­si­ble for the gen­er­a­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion and sale of elec­tri­cal pow­er across the Trem­i­ti Islands. As the his­toric oper­a­tor, the com­pa­ny intro­duced elec­tri­fi­ca­tion to the arch­i­pel­ago and has ensured a reli­able elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply ever since.

As the Trem­i­ti Islands are not con­nect­ed to the Ital­ian nation­al grid, the entire elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply depends on an inde­pen­dent island pow­er net­work. To ensure con­tin­u­ous pow­er gen­er­a­tion, GIE oper­ates eight ful­ly sound­proofed gen­er­at­ing sets locat­ed on the islands of San Domi­no and San Nico­la. The infra­struc­ture also includes approx­i­mate­ly 14 kilo­me­tres of pre­dom­i­nant­ly under­ground medi­um and low-volt­age dis­tri­b­u­tion lines, twelve medi­um-to-low volt­age sub­sta­tions and a 10 kV dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work, pro­vid­ing a sta­ble elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply across the archipelago.

Proven Perkins tech­nol­o­gy across the pow­er plant

Reli­able pow­er gen­er­a­tion has relied on Perkins engine tech­nol­o­gy for many years. Today, sev­er­al Perkins engine series are installed across the pow­er sta­tion, pro­vid­ing the flex­i­bil­i­ty and redun­dan­cy required for an iso­lat­ed island grid.

On San Domi­no, elec­tric­i­ty is gen­er­at­ed by three Perkins 4006–23TAG3A engines, one Perkins 2506C-E15TAG2, one Perkins 4008TAG2A and one Perkins 5008A-E30TAG2. On San Nico­la, a Perkins 2206C-13TAG3 pro­vides addi­tion­al gen­er­at­ing capacity.

The com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent Perkins engine plat­forms allows GIE to effi­cient­ly man­age vary­ing pow­er demands while main­tain­ing a secure and reli­able elec­tric­i­ty supply.

The vari­ety of Perkins engine series installed across the Trem­i­ti Islands illus­trates the breadth of the Perkins elec­tric pow­er port­fo­lio. With gen­er­a­tor set rat­ings rang­ing from approx­i­mate­ly 5 kVA to 2,500 kVA, Perkins pro­vides solu­tions for pow­er gen­er­a­tion appli­ca­tions of vir­tu­al­ly every scale. This allows oper­a­tors such as GIE to match the most suit­able engine to the spe­cif­ic require­ments of each gen­er­at­ing set while ben­e­fit­ing from proven tech­nol­o­gy, glob­al ser­vice sup­port and excel­lent parts avail­abil­i­ty through­out the prod­uct lifecycle.

Inte­grat­ing the lat­est Perkins 5000 Series engine

At the end of May, BU Pow­er Sys­tems Italia suc­cess­ful­ly installed and com­mis­sioned a new Perkins 5008A-E30TAG2 gen­er­at­ing set. Since June, the engine has been oper­at­ing as part of the island’s pow­er gen­er­a­tion sys­tem, sup­port­ing reli­able elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing peri­ods of increased demand.

As the offi­cial Perkins dis­trib­u­tor, BU Pow­er Sys­tems Italia sup­plied the engine, car­ried out the com­mis­sion­ing and sup­port­ed its inte­gra­tion into the exist­ing pow­er gen­er­a­tion infra­struc­ture. This ensured that the new gen­er­at­ing set could be incor­po­rat­ed seam­less­ly into the exist­ing fleet of Perkins-pow­ered gen­er­a­tor sets.

Advanced engine tech­nol­o­gy for crit­i­cal pow­er applications

The Perkins 5008A-E30TAG2 has been specif­i­cal­ly devel­oped for sta­tion­ary elec­tric pow­er gen­er­a­tion. The elec­tron­i­cal­ly con­trolled inline eight-cylin­der engine fea­tures a dis­place­ment of 30.56 litres and oper­ates as a Prime-rat­ed gen­er­at­ing set with an out­put of 800 kWe (1000 kVA at 50 Hz).

Under nor­mal oper­at­ing con­di­tions, the gen­er­at­ing set is inten­tion­al­ly oper­at­ed at approx­i­mate­ly 70% of its Prime pow­er rat­ing. As elec­tric­i­ty demand increas­es, the plant con­trol sys­tem auto­mat­i­cal­ly shares the addi­tion­al load with oth­er gen­er­at­ing sets. This intel­li­gent load man­age­ment strat­e­gy improves oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy, reduces mechan­i­cal stress on indi­vid­ual engines and ensures suf­fi­cient pow­er reserves remain available.

A key advan­tage of the Perkins 5000 Series is its Full Author­i­ty Elec­tron­ic Con­trol (FAE) sys­tem. Replac­ing a con­ven­tion­al mechan­i­cal gov­er­nor with ful­ly elec­tron­ic engine man­age­ment sig­nif­i­cant­ly improves load accep­tance and enables faster tran­sient response. For an iso­lat­ed island grid, these char­ac­ter­is­tics help main­tain sta­ble volt­age and fre­quen­cy, even dur­ing sud­den changes in elec­tric­i­ty demand.

The engine is also designed for straight­for­ward inte­gra­tion into exist­ing plant con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems. Its elec­tron­ic archi­tec­ture sup­ports the cus­tomer’s telem­at­ics solu­tion and is opti­mised for fuel-effi­cient oper­a­tion. In addi­tion, the Perkins telem­at­ics mod­ule con­tin­u­ous­ly records oper­at­ing hours, fuel lev­el, GPS loca­tion and diag­nos­tic fault codes, trans­mit­ting this infor­ma­tion to the Perkins plat­form. This enables con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing of engine health, sup­ports pre­dic­tive main­te­nance strate­gies and helps max­imise equip­ment avail­abil­i­ty through­out the engine’s lifecycle.

Tech­nol­o­gy and exper­tise from a sin­gle source

Reli­able pow­er gen­er­a­tion depends on more than engine per­for­mance alone. Tech­ni­cal exper­tise, depend­able ser­vice and long-term sup­port are equal­ly impor­tant to ensure the avail­abil­i­ty of crit­i­cal infrastructure.

As the offi­cial Perkins dis­trib­u­tor, BU Pow­er Sys­tems Italia sup­ports GIE with engine sup­ply, com­mis­sion­ing, tech­ni­cal assis­tance and after­sales ser­vices through­out the engine life­cy­cle. Togeth­er, Perkins and BU Pow­er Sys­tems con­tribute to main­tain­ing a reli­able and effi­cient elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply for the Trem­i­ti Islands.

Cus­tomer voice

“Reli­a­bil­i­ty and avail­abil­i­ty are essen­tial for oper­at­ing an inde­pen­dent pow­er gen­er­a­tion infra­struc­ture. For many years, Perkins engines have con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed their per­for­mance at our pow­er sta­tion. We are pleased to have BU Pow­er Sys­tems Italia as a strong part­ner by our side, sup­port­ing us with tech­ni­cal exper­tise, reli­able ser­vice and the suc­cess­ful inte­gra­tion of new engine tech­nolo­gies. This gives us the con­fi­dence to ensure a reli­able pow­er sup­ply for the Trem­i­ti Islands over the long term,” says Ing. Michele La Pla­ca, Pow­er Sta­tion Man­ag­er of the Trem­i­ti Islands.