No sun, no power: no wind, no power: no diesel, no power.
I just received a reminder from one of our fuel suppliers to make sure I top up my diesel generator fuel tanks in preparation for the upcoming hurricane season. This note came one day after reviewing the latest NOAA forecast that this could be the worst hurricane season in decades. They are forecasting 13 hurricanes.
I certainly appreciated the reminder, but it also made me think about the likelihood of getting diesel delivered during or just after a major storm. We advise our customers to move away from diesel and switch to natural gas for backup power. Not only is natural gas much cleaner, it is delivery (via underground pipeline) is orders of magnitude more reliable than diesel.
Most diesel backup generators hold enough fuel for 1 to 2 days maximum, after which you’re down and dark. For simple outages, this is fine, but because of the damage caused by extreme weather, it is very likely your supplier will not be able to deliver and refuel your generator. Compounding this is the fact that emergency response agencies have priority regarding diesel fuel and can and will ration or disallow delivery.
If you are interested in truly being resilient to power outages, you should consider upgrading your diesel backup generator to natural gas. Exergy Energy, your concierge utility, will make this simple and easy. All with no CAPEX or upfront cost. To learn more about our Backup Power as a Service program please visit us at https://exergyenergy.com